Sunday, November 20, 2011

Some musings

After talking with Kyle, Destroyer of Worlds last night, I remembered a time in my past that I haven't shared with you all.

During my time as an industrial sewage inspector in Glenrock, WY, I stumbled upon a curious group of people who owned, and rode, racing pythons. Now these are not the draft snakes you might see in the rail yard pulling boxcars into place, nor are they the feather boas that many men and women use to accessorize.

No, these are racing pythons. What made this group so fascinating is that they actually rode their mounts in the race rather than simply racing the animals like other animal racing leagues such as greyhounds, warthogs, or the wildly popular rattlesnake racing circuit.

Most of the boa jockeys used some sort of slinky like saddle to allow for the slither aspect as well as provide more stability in the corners for the pythons. As an aside, from 1982-1983, snow boots were briefly allowed in competition, but after the horrific tangling coming out of turn 3 in the penultimate race of the season, no foot wear has been allowed except for the traditional bunny slippers.

What reminded me of this volatile time in my life was the way that Kyle, Destroyer of Worlds coughed. He could have been a professional starter (and may very well have been) in the python racing league. Of course, one can't feed a family on just snake meat, so I'm sure he would have had to find something else (say fire fighting and collecting all those smoke damaged cans of SPAM) to supplement receiving the losing boas as payment for his officiating services.

Anyways, if you're ever in Glenrock, WY on a Thursday morning, about 2:14 AM, head for the sewers and enjoy some good old fashioned snake racin'! It'll do ya good!

First time in OK

I'm posting this from Broken Arrow, OK. My wife and I are visiting her aunt and uncle (and cousins) that live here.

On our way here, we stopped by and visited our friends in Joplin, MO that we knew in Alaska - the Howards. If you watch Extreme Home Makeover, you might be familiar with their 7 houses in 7 days event in Joplin; our friends were one of the families that were blessed with one of their houses!

Kyle, Destroyer of Worlds, is a fireman in Joplin, and we really enjoyed spending time with him, his wife and their four kids (two of which we also knew in Alaska.) Yes, we got to see the house, but more importantly, we got to hear how God protected them during the tornado. I'm not sure if the EHM show will detail their story, but hopefully it does as it is amazing!

Oh, and I know what you're thinking: "With a title like 'Destroyer of Worlds', did Kyle cause the tornado?" Well, I'm 15% sure that he didn't purposely set it in motion - maybe even 15.5% sure. Now, if a butterfly's wings can spawn a hurricane, I'm sure that an errant sneeze or cough from a Destroyer of Worlds can wreak some damage.

I'm not sayin'...

I'm just sayin'.

Tuesday, November 1, 2011

Personal Best

Last night, our workout was Legs! Our trainer, Mark, said that he was going to challenge us to hit personal bests in the various exercises.

The first exercise up was the seated leg press. This machine has one sitting with their legs placed on a platform at a 45 degree angle. It's kind of like a seated squat, but because of the angle, it takes roughly twice as much weight to equal a regular squat.

That said, I was able to top out (after 5 sets of increasing weight and decreasing reps) at 500 pounds!! For 4 reps. Woot! I was pretty psyched!

My wife and I did indeed hit personal bests for all of the leg exercises that we did last night. We need to take a look back at Jan/Feb of this year so we can see just how far we've come. I'm betting that it's quite a bit.

but...500 lbs! /fist pump!