Alice In Space

"Millions of people and one little lie
Zillions of children whose spirits have all flown away
They're long gone

And its a long way out to Alice in Space
And its a long way out to Alice in Space
Its a long way out"
Alice In Space, Gandalf Murphy and the Slambovian Circus of Dreams

Nice druggie reference counselor.  We missed the big moon Saturday, no chance.  In that storm
and all that ugly shit.  Above tweeted by Jeri Ryan, the uber-beautiful seven of nine, who overcame a sleazy scene to build her home.  Only second photo I've used that I did not take; it's a goodin'
Monday
Good work grind to distract from Saturday's B adventure.  Very raw and very tired.  In for Pradeep sixty minute sweatfest.  One of the can't chant white boys had the class before and had the room at about 90.  Pradeep's classes are so athletic it's about the last thing anyone needs.  But we get through and well.  At the end rolling onto the side and he goes into the think of the one you love in your life rap it's all I can do keep from breaking into tears. Then he breaks it to us that he will no longer be teaching Monday nights.  Bummer.  DO NOT replace with chanting white boy.
Tuesday
In early for kbells:
100 16kg swing warm up, 5 squat to pushpress, twin 20kg, 5 long cycle clean and press, twin 24, 1+1 32 clean & press x 2
10+10 sls with 10kg vipr overhead, arms straight and back
5/3 neutral grip pull ups 16lb assist
10+10 figure 8 to hold, 20 then 24.
3x.  Figure 8s fun, flashy move and had been a while.
Stop after 45 cause start feeling jacked up.  Realize that's three Kbell workouts in 4 days, thought about coming back for tgu swing fest, but just give it a rest old man.  No more until iron until Thursday; eat well  and yoga between now and then.
It's Stephen Sondheim's birthday.  He is 81, sharp as ever.
It's Amy's birthday too, we won't talk about how many.
Wednesday
Pradeep mid-day.  Starts out slow which means bring it later.  He did.  So we did, all good.  Very very good.
Today
Long day.  Horizontal rain on way to ferry leaves soaked.  Trying to dry.  
Tired and still spent from Saturday; can break into tears at the drop of a hat.  Leave at 5:30.

Walked out the west side of the building; if I'd gone out the east I woulda headed straight for the boat and 5:45.  No, go do something for some time so you can do yoga friday and kbells Saturday before that ugly site visit at 1:00.
Throw it down for 30 min.
15/15 seven rep pace with 16kg sport bell, x 60.
Very good snatch session, sport bell handles way easier on middle aged mitts that the RKC bells that have been thrashed by ignorant gym use. 
Trainer SR right in back of me with client ten years younger (than me), pointing out benefits of kbell work on posterior chain as my white ass moves back an forth.  Client says, "we aren't going to do that are we ?"  SR looks a little chagrined, "not yet."
Lady it's a choice.  You can choose strength or weakness.  But you gotta choose it.  Once you do, she can help you, big time.  You don't choose strength, then it's entropy.  Weakness.  You chose it, it won't be her fault.

Somethings you don't get to choose, they just happen.  So when you get to pick, choose wisely.

It's a long way out . . . http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKTJpEujVHo

We Hide and Seek

"Having a family is like having a bowling alley installed in your brain."
Martin Mull

Sunday
Up "late."
It's gonna rain, looks like hard. Get the dog walk in by 11:30. That's gonna be it. Clean up and make outstanding fish tacos.
Monday, back to getting teenagers up in the dark. Plotting trajectory of the day; office is going to be busy, yoga or iron this pm ?  Get in early enough to choose.  Pradeep is still traveling and its one of the white boys who try to chant subbing, so iron it is:
100 16kg swing warm up
long cycle clean & press
5 double 20, 5 double 24, 1+1 32x2
10 front squats, double 16kg
10 reverse pull ups off of Smith Machine to 5 neutral grip pull-ups, 16lbs assist
Deck squats 5 10lb plate to 5 4kg, better and better
3x
Long cycle presses just crazy strong
Swings, 15/15 32kg ten reps x 5
30/30, 20 rep pace 24kg x 7
Tuesday
CT, get up to swings, ten reps to get downs, next side. 16 3x, 20 4x, 24 3x
Good mix and will use it again.
Wednesday, MH class late.  Meet ct for good lunch and back for meeting with MF, who hires me to help clean up one of the biggest cluster fucks I've seen which is saying something.
Thursday, gets busier and busier as day goes on, end up nothing.
Another Friday suit day.  Hayward court appearance that should take ten minutes stretches to two hours for no reason except that opposing counsel is long winded and the judge had a light calendar and did not seem to want to attend to the backlog on his desk.  I won but FML.
Go in for Pradeep, which is awesome as usual, start weekend with what would be a very temporary inner calm.
Brigid texts me as I'm driving up.  She's ordered 127 Hours and CANNOT WAIT to watch it.  We curl up to take Aron's ride.  Its is a great movie and at the scene where Aron's dad pulls him out of the car as a two year old and sits with him looking at the desert, she blurts out:  "that's the best thing ever you can do with your kid."  Now how would she know:

 

That just slays me.

Saturday, its dumping, seriously dumping rain.
Go out, load up and unload firewood which is a pretty good little early bit of exercise.  Run around in the pounding rain.
At about 4:30 Brigid starts cooking ham.  She also wants to bake scones but baking soda is out of date.  I want to get the workout I have been procrastinating all day done, we can put the baking soda run off.
Home workouts always suck to start; I think it's chemical.  In the gym there is anticipation and juice and it is a place to be beastly.  Home is a place to curl up with book or laptop, watch the fire and procrastinate with the dog sleeping at feet, think about Aron Ralston and look forward to the Punch Brothers show with 5 at McNear's Mystic.  Been looking forward to this for months, no one can play like those guys.  In anticipation of that, find a Allison Krauss & Union Station Soundstage show, put it on, and start it up.
Its pretty fucking clod like, particularly first two rounds of presses:
5+5 20kg, 4+4 24kg, 3+3 28kg
10 20kg goblet squats
10+10 28kg rows
10 20kg bootstrap squats
3x
Allison Krauss has an angel's voice and the harmonies below her are magic.  They are not a fast-playing (though they can) bluegrass pyrotechnic band.  At presses circuit 3 they drop into Jerry Douglas' We Hide & Seek which always makes the skin crawl.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0eLq90iqtk.  Simple melodies for complicated people, apologies to WH.  That kicks in and so does the juice, third circuit is awesome.
Steal ct's tgu swing alternating progression, 5+5, 10 swings between up and down, much much better.
Eat excellent ham dinner and up for Punch Brothers.
It is raining so fucking hard.  Pick up 5.  We hear first two tunes from opener and phone rings.
It's Brigid.  C took her to pick up baking soda at WF.  Barry went with them.  They ran in, he stayed in the car, but he didn't.  He has been gone since 8:00.  They have been looking for an hour, no sign.
Get 5, gotta leave.  Get to wf, start showing cops pictures on my phone, one says he is pretty sure he saw Barry running down Delong.  I am freaking.  Tell the cops I am going to start making rounds of haunts, they just say: go, you will know better than we do.  5 pulls up in new 4wd CRV, he's my wheel man.  We drive all over town in the pouring rain and howling wind.  Downtown is blanketed with Sheriff's Dept.  I am running around in parks, checking public restrooms.  I go into every open business and cruise every shopping center.  It is raining so hard and is so windy its fucking unbelievable.  It is freezing as well and at 11:45 I go home for foul weather gear soaked to the bone.  The dog team from search and rescue has driven down from Vacaville, 55 miles away during one of the worst storms in years.  They are at the house.  I spend a few minutes downloading where we have been, and tell them where we are going next and leave, lead guy looks at me and says "thanks for not stopping"  Are you fucking kidding me ?  They have almost fifty people out looking for my kid in a hammering storm, I don't stop till he's found.  Back to WF, I go around the perimeter of the complex, just cannot believe Barry, who hates the dark and the rain would leave the garage.  I lose it a little bit in the street running back to the car.  We keep looking.  Flooded playing fields, deep puddles everywhere.
12:55.  He's been gone for five hours.  5 has been driving me around for four.  Text comes in, they have him.  He is fine.  Lose it on the way to the police station.
Walk in and hug the hell out of him,.  He is dry, warm, looking a bit baffled.  Search and rescue had been through the garage three times and not found him, then there he was sitting on the mat at the store entrance after being missing for five hours.  I can't talk.  Big cop comes up:  "here he is, now you can take him home."
I should not have trusted the most logical place to be searched by others, but the running down DeLong factoid spun me.  Those people are awesome and the next time some right wing dickwad starts knocking public employees I'm gonna tell him a story.  But he may have come out for me much sooner.
Bed by about 3:00 am.

Sunday
Brigid makes her scones, and her brother an omelet.  One for me too.

 

Bathe and shave him.  Into the office and draft trial use section for an end user license agreement while Barry listens to Blood On The Tracks in back of me.  Delightfully ordinary.
Up to ct for hour long blast which is just great, B watching and breathing heavy on a box.  We take him for ice cream, drop her off and recount the whole episode to grandma on way home.  So raw and tired, but the daughter wants to hang to which one should never say no . . .

Pieces

"I feel like whenever I go on an adventure and I meet you, we make a little trade. I give you a little piece of me, you give me a little piece of you. Now we are different, better. We can never go back."
JWB

A good thief always tips his hat.  http://www.slambovia.com/
I wish Gandalf Murphy and The Slambovia Circus of Dreams would come back to the Left Coast.

Friday, smoking 5:30 with Pradeep.  Not quite crippled to start and extremely better after: "You're in the pose, if not get out, what are you doing here ?"

Saturday
I get to work six days a week now.  It's ok.
Gym before:
100 swing warm-up 10+10x5 16kg
5 burpees, to push-ups (3) to twin 24kg suitcase deads
15+15 step back lunges off of box
10+10 32 kg rows
10 deck squats, 8kg to 4kg
x3
30/30 24kg swings, 20 rep pace to 1+1 tgu x 5
 another 100 swings x 5 without TGU.
Sunday, nothing.
Monday
I am digging the long cycle double press work
100 16kg swing warm-up
5 double 20, 5 double 24 long cycle press, to single 32kg C&P
15+15 sls off of 12 inch platform
10 reverse pull-ups off of smith, to 5 neutral grip pull-ups, 16lb assist
10 deck squats, 8, then 4 counterbalance.
Going slow on the deck squats and thinking somersault to stand up far more effective that trying to bull my way to feet.  Slow down old man.
x3
30/30 24kg swings (20 reps) x 10.
Tuesday
Three miles am then quick hit CT class.  30 second swings, 5 different weight bells each, one of 32, 28, 20, 24, 16 and even 12 for one.  That to squats. 4x, 400 swings in 20.
Wednesday
Really tough Pradeep class
Thursday
Nothing
Friday
Up at 6:30 and C comes up the stairs in tears.  I think her rabbits must have died or something, but no, go downstairs to see Japan has been torn apart into pieces.  They are showing the tsunami hitting the Sendai airport over and over and talking about how prepared Japan is for large earthquakes.  The scope is so awfully crushing; there cannot be any way to prepare for this.
They are talking about a Tsunami hitting west coast and check to see if ferry is running.  It is, the inconvenience to me will be minimal as we will experience a best a mild surge.
The bouncy folk tunes that have been below the internal dialogue of late disappear and I am overwhelmed with sadness.  I don't even like people that much, but this is so big and shocking and could so easily be us.  Put on the rare friday suit as special mastering and must look special.  The bay is flat and the morning is beautiful, just the odd tsunami warning sign at Lincoln.

 Its going to be a really busy day but head in early for some gym work:
60 swing warm-up
Long cycle clean and press ladders 1-5+1-5 24kg
10+10 sls off 18 inch box;
5 then 3 assisted pull-ups, 16lbs assist
10 deck squats, usual counterbalance.
x3
30/30 20 24kg swings x 10.
Busy busy day; every time I sit down for a second of rest start to tear up.  Pretty clear no one has any idea yet what the scope of this is.
Get home and the tension is so thick its palpable.  C has the TV turned up way too loud and its all death and destruction in japanese.  Ian is flipping out because he got rejected from yet another school, which was utterly predictable but grinds on him nonetheless, he is angry won't talk and in tears.  I turn the fucking tv way back down and make Joe's Special.  Ian will not come out and eat.
Watch Date Night with Brigid which is funny.
This morning.  Japanese nuke plant has exploded.  Two trains are missing.  I got work to do and want to go to yoga first.  Shelve it Dad, you have work here to do.  Rose sees the blue jeans and gets frisky.  Get Ian up and out into marsh.  Start talking to him about taking a year off.  I realize that was effectively what I did, given my abysmal first semester of college; did not get better until the Spring.  Talk to him about Peace Corps, other NGO possibilities, he is warming to that.  It is abundantly clear he needs to get out of the Bay Area, on his own, but not alone, and grow up as his adult role models have been less than stellar examples and it is equally clear I need to get him hooked into that. We talk and talk, take him to brunch after, he seems better.
Sigh.  Into office.  Three hours later, into gym for quick hit:
15/15 7 rep 16kg snatches x 60.
 There are pieces of me everywhere; that ain't nothing compared to the pieces of you streaming into my den.  The sadness may be overwhelming but it cannot be crippling.  No one gets better then.

Radio Is Dead

"Jenny said when she was just five years old
My parents are gonna be the death of us all
Two TV sets and two Cadillac cars--
Ain't gonna help us at all
Then one fine mornin' she puts on a New York station
She don't believe what she heard at all
She started dancin' to that fine fine music
You know her life was saved by Rock 'n' Roll
Despite all the amputations
You could just dance to a rock 'n ' roll station
and it was alright."
Lou Reed, Rock and Roll

Don't cry (unless you were a kdfc listener, RIP.)  There is a lot of cool shit out there to take its place.  www.wolfgangsvault.com.  Just look at this big ol' stack of Lou Reed shows from 1973.

You know, the tour that Rock 'n Roll Animal was recorded from, with Steve Hunter.  The tour where legend has it that Lou shot up on stage in Madison Square Garden during Heroin.  The tour that had us teenaged kids in the mid-70's going ape shit at weekend parties, the boys playing air guitar while all the hot girls looked bored ?  Yeah, that one.  Youth wasted on the young.  Yes, there is some folklore you do not share with the teenage son.

Lou's birthday was 3/2.  He shares with Theodor Geisel aka Dr. Seuss.
For both:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZ88oTITMoM&feature=list_related&playnext=1&list=MLGxdCwVVULXe3joATJM-NR3b-FoWergui

The Cat In The Hat was the result of a publisher's challenge to Geisel to write a children's book using only three hundred words.  He used 220.  I learned that stuck in a traffic jam for two hours on 3/2, listening to NPR, on the RADIO.  Fuck Clear Channel.

Tuesday.  Hands still jacked up from last week.  Cannot swing anything heavy or snatch, so I get to do what I really like to do, which is press heavy shit over head.  I have no idea why this holds such appeal:
16 kg single arm swings 10+10 x 5 warm up

Long cycle clean and press, 5 double 20, 5 double 24, 1+1 x 2 single 32;
15+15 sls off of 12 inch box
10 reverse pull-ups off to Smith Machine, last set assisted pull ups, usual mishegas
Front squats, 10 double 16kg
x 3
That was it.  Planned to get back in evening to finish off but hands ragged and bleeding, wimpering at the keyboard all day.  Pathetic.
Wednesday.  Left early to get to gym early, but semi dumped load of wood at civic center and I an fucked for hours.  Unintended rest day.  FML.
Thursday
Client meeting at 3:15.
Gym time, time to play with toys, as illustrated above:
Usual 100 rep 16kg single arm swing warm up, 10+10 x 5
Long cycle clean & press
Double 20 x 5 to double 24 x 5, x 2
sls off of box, 10+10, passive leg in front
10 + 10 32kg rows
10 deck squats, 5 8kg, then 5 4kg, be at body weight soon.
x3
Trainer Kristen (who is really good) with soft client gives the big shout out on the first set with the 20's.  Honey that's the warm up set to the 24's, which are easy but I am a piece away from twin 32's.  What I really want are some twin 28's so I can get to the twin 32's at my advanced age: doesn't anyone read the suggestion box ?
Fuck the fucked hands,
20 24kg swings, 1+1 tgu x 5
Last sets, do the tgu with the 20kg VIPR.  The VIPR is a large rubber cylinder  with an assortment of handles allowing for a variety of full body ballistic moves.  It is pretty cool to look at, but really folks, they are pretty fucking light.  The 20kg looks big, but the middle handle is too flimsy to actually press it, like a bu press.  So the TGU's look cool, but fuckin oly bar is far  better.  It's kinda sad really . . .
Chill flunky.  Feel the groove and breathe deep; it's Lou's song, but their groove is right on . . .
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHRFZFmEq9o&feature=related
Pradeep tomorrow for happy hour, gonna breathe deep.