Weedeaters are Fun

I never participated in the great McMansion, biggest lawn tractor, biggest gas grill competition of the last few decades so I buy cheap weedeaters. I just don't see any need for Joe Blow to spend a small fortune on an industrial weedeater and lawn mower to cut his 7/8th's acre of suburbia once a week. The John Deere "lawn tractor" seems to be the status symbol of choice these days. Interesting that there's almost nothing John Deere on any of them except the name and the green paint. Most lawn tractors bought at box stores are made by only a handful of manufacturers. Same with weedeaters.

The cheap little Weedeater brand weed whackers that I've been using for the past few decades are manufactured by Poulan and have many brand names slapped on them. They're definitely not made for industrial usage but for less than $90, you can't beat 'em. To get the best performance from your own unit, you will need a Poulan carb adjustment tool to tune the fuel mixture and just a little bit of common sense and technical ability to keep it running well.

My newest Weedeater is a FL25 that I bought in the spring and it ran absolutely great until a few weeks ago. A little troubleshooting led me to the fuel filter which looked like the aluminum was disintegrating and actually left a stain in the plastic fuel tank. Weird. Of course, the guy at the small engine shop blamed it on ethanol blends. It sounds feasible but I've been running ethanol blends in everything for more than two decades and have never seen this happen before. Ethanol blends are not supposed to be stored for more than 90 days so I'm wondering if the age of the fuel may have contributed to the problem along with the extreme heat this summer.

$2.50 for a new filter and an hour spent disassembling, cleaning, and tweaking the Walbro carburetor got her back in primo condition. Stay tuned for a future entry detailing exactly how to tweak that carb!

Back In The Gym: Week Three

I missed my workout last Friday and I was afraid that today was going to be a bust as well. I didn't sleep well last night and was dead tired all morning. A quick midday nap and a Diet Mountain Dew provided the needed motivation enabling me to ramp up the cardio to 30 minutes on the Precor elliptical burning up right under 300 calories and 2.5 miles.

Although muscle soreness isn't supposed to be an indicator of progress, I've alway seemed to suffer greatly in that area and the feedback is useful. My last circuit workout, although challenging, didn't leave me sore so I decided to change it up a bit. Today, I knocked out three sets of rows and three sets of lat pulldowns with reps in the 6-10 range. I then moved on to the incline press but only managed two sets before complete failure.

My capacity for work is rather low as I'm sure the cardio is burning up some energy and I haven't even really cut the calories yet. I'm going to attempt to hit the gym five days this week on a two day split on the stength training with cardio every day. At least that's the plan at the moment. We'll see how it feels.

Say What?

"It's like a milk cow with 310 million tits."
-- Deficit Commission co-chair Alan Simpson on Social Security

I guess he forgot that the vast majority of those people worked their whole lives and paid into the system. It particularly disgusts me considering that my father worked and paid into the system until he passed away at 60 and thus will never see a dime of that money. My mother, who was a stay-at-home mom and never paid into the system, will receive about half of my father's projected payments in survivor's benefits. The very thought that the bourgeois of Washington D.C. would endanger that well deserved check has me considering the benefits of the guillotine and I don't even support capital punishment.

Back In The Gym: One Week In

One week down. Many more to come! I completed my second workout of the week and haven't collapsed into a quivering heap quite yet. It's been the Precor elliptical machine for 20 minutes of cardio this week. I made the mistake of venturing into the gym at noon on Monday and found all of the treadmills taken. No big deal. I actually enjoyed the elliptical more than I remembered. I can see my pulse rate dropping already. Lower blood pressure here we come!

So what am I doing in the strength training area? At the moment, just a simple fullbody circuit training program consisting of two sets at the following Nautilus Nitro Plus stations: Mid Row, Lat Pulldown, Seated Calf, Incline Press, and Leg Press in that order. I don't think I can call it a traditional circuit since I complete the two sets at each station with about a minute between sets before moving on to the next exercise. It's just easier than coming back and finding someone else using the station.

As you may have noticed, there is no direct arm work. Not much need for it at the moment. The core exercises are working just fine. I think I'll punish myself for six weeks with this routine before mixing it up somewhat. I'm not quite sure which way that I want to go but I think I will be sticking with the machines this time. My shoulders actually feel good these days and I would like to keep it that way. Same goes for my back. I doubt that free weight squats and deads will be in the routine ever again. I'm looking forward to your emails. 8)

Back in the Gym

I found this cool article on NPR this morning - No More Gym? Don't Worry, Your Muscles Remember. It confirms the previously anecdotal theory of muscle memory and I'm hoping that it still applies to the guy that has now crested 40. I guess we'll see.

Except for my bulging disc shortened experience with P90X last August, I haven't worked out since I was laid off from Diebold in April of 2006. Friends of mine during my 30's would be astonished that I can actually eat like a normal human being and not exercise at least three times per week but it's true. I've been living the life of the average sedentary office geek for the last four years.

OK, maybe not quite average. My diet is still relatively clean compared to the norm and I'm only about ten pounds heavier but I've lost muscle mass as well so it's perhaps a bit more overall but less than twenty pounds overweight in our obese society can't hardly be considered average. Unfortunately, my blood pressure is in the pre-hypertensive range and the little woman is pushing for a full cardio evaluation since my father's untimely passing.

Since once again finding employment on the Arsenal, I joined the MWR and have now hit the gym three times with 20 minutes of cardio and circuit training on some cool Nautilus equipment. I used one of their lat pulldown stations at UAH years ago and it's great! I've been pleasantly surprised with my performance. Definitely not world shattering but decent for a four year lay-off. I think the new job has revitalized my body, mind, and spirit. I still need to get some more discipline in my diet but I'm happy to be exercising regularly once again. Now I've got to work on that yoga routine for my off days.

Compulsive Email Checker?

Do you find yourself hitting the Send/Receive button? Sure, your email client checks the mail at least every 30 minutes but do you just have to hit that little button only to watch some spam roll into your junk folder? I confess. My name is Michael Ray and I am a compulsive email checker which would probably be acceptable if I actually recieved something but junk on a regular basis.

At the height of my motorsports journalism days, I received upwards of 300 messages per day and spent a few hours downloading my new messages upon returning from a race. Dial-up is definitely a problem when you have 1200 messages waiting to be read. After I gave up the "fame and glory", it took a while to acclimate to absolutely nothing being in my inbox and I don't think I've ever completely given up the addiction.

Working on the military base without access to my email client may provide the needed discipline to kick the email habit. I have absolutely no reason to log into webmail two dozen times per day when the only messages I receive are notices that I paid a bill, Russian girls wanting to send me their pictures, or the latest ad for Viagra. I'm kicking the email habit! I'm done!

Long Time. No Blog.

Sporadic blogging seems to be one of my character traits yet one that I don't believe is unique to my personality. Anyhow, I'm back! Actually, there were a multitude of reasons for my lack of blogworthiness but the major factor was the day job. Working for Knology had become so self consuming that I had neither the time nor inclination to write about it, not even as self-therapy which is mostly what I call it when you're writing and no one is reading it. Everyone is probably playing Farmville or something.

Facebook seems to have become the preferred method of keeping up with friends and family and our modern busy lives seem to tolerate the short, mostly non-thought provoking comments much better although I could do without knowing everyone's location. The dentist appointment and subsequent trip to Dunkin Donuts is best kept to yourself. I can also live without Farmville, Mafia Wars, etc. but if it makes your day brighter then go for it.

Really, I'm not bashing Facebook. It has allowed me to contact many friends that I haven't seen in two decades, close friends that gave me a lot of support when my father passed away last month. I can't thank them enough and I'm glad that they're back in my life.

More ramblings coming in the near future.