luckycanuck

"It used to be cool" night went very well.

I decided on Saturday morning that I would go as Officer John McClane from the Die Hard series.  There are very few characters that I could come as that have very short hair, but this one worked.  One theory that Die Hard was still cool and therefore my outfit was inappropriate was advanced, but I decided that it was still a valid idea because Die Hard was such a huge series that was so full of iconic action movie cliches that it can be mocked for its excesses even as it enjoys a mantle of retro coolness.  Plenty of things fall into similar categories.

I managed to get a workout in on Saturday afternoon.

YW: AMRAP 12 minutes - 5 80kg deadlifts, 15 hand release pushups (12 rounds +5 +3).  Finisher - 2 minutes for max situps (75), 2 minutes max 30kg tricep extentions (81), 2 minutes mac 30kg bicep curls (73).

I was really sore especially from all the pushups, but later on during the party I was called upon by MadAlex to do pushups as her way of explaining my inclination to spontaneously do pushups.  I did 50 in one set as they counted off, and later did some pushups on the sofa over the people who were sitting on it.  I don't know whose idea that was, but I was always going to take up that challenge.
( Cut for pics )

People didn't stay as late as our last party, there weren't as many people (last time Roxy invited almost her whole program and this time she only invited about half of them.  By about 2:30am I was in bed.  I made it up the next morning with no hangover at all (Alleluia spent a lot of time over the toilet regretting the amount of alcohol she had consumed the night before.  I was absolutely exhausted though, and have not set foot off of the property all day.  I've also taken a couple of my prescription muscle relaxants and have been quite drowsy.  My neckstill has a stubborn crick and I've got a lot of soreness in the chest and core.

So today was spent mopping floors and loaning my car to Roxy as I was not going to be driving anywhere.  Chez Canuck is clean again.

Alleluia is leaving, which means we are replacing her with a new housemate.  We put out an ad and got a lot of response and two people came to view the place yesterday.

We were happy with both but we wound up settling on the older (and quieter) of the two.  And get this, she has been to the Olympics twice.  The freakin' OLYMPICS!!!



I mean she didn't win, but still.  OLYMPICS!!!!!!

She's taking up a teaching job in a suburb not far from Chez Canuck and she seems like she will fit nicely into the house.  The prospective nickname is "Esky" because it sounds not to far off from her real name and because it has been something like a dozen years since she has had a summer.  Really.  Every Australian summer she has been off in the northern hemisphere

This, of course, means that I will almost certainly no longer be the sportiest/fittest person in the house, and I am without question not the best cross country skier.  But I think this story is cool enough that I don't mind losing that mantle.  Anyway, I bet I'm still the best at wife carrying.

I had dinner with Coffee Snob last night.  There is also a room to be filled in her place and because she was home alone she wanted someone to be there when unfamiliar men came to the house.  So in exchange for looking all intimidating, I got this.


Ecuadorian chicken stew, avocado, rice, and refried plantains.  It's good having friends who can cook.

I'm currently trying to pick up some more shares in JRL which I feel are grossly undervalued, and I think I will approve and participate in the capital raising for VMG.  I may get rid of it after a while.  Clearly I've held on too long, and I hope I can use this as a learning experience.  I have also applied for a margin loan.  I've never dealt with margin trading and I don't plan to go too far into it.  I've applied for the smallest credit limit available, but it does present the opportunity to increase some of my holdings like CCV and AUT and to get into new ones like NAB that offer stable and long term growth.  This would not be the place for something risky, and I have no intention of getting leveraged up to the hilt.  Still this stands to be the largest debt I've ever taken on.

I will be getting my unused annual leave paid out when I go and I will likely have another job to go into, but I will have to keep more cash around than I otherwise would given what will become my new working situation.

I also tried to sign into Google+ and was told to come back later.  Not encouraging.  The big new social media platform being run by the biggest kind on the block and they can't handle the capacity.

YW: Capping off the long weekend with a chest centric day.  10,9...1 Bench press and hand release pushups.  10 ring pushups, 10 clean and press, 10 ring pushups, 10 clean and press, 10 heavy bag getups.  Then to finish off: 1 minute maximum hand release pushups, 1 minute rest, continue until 300 pushups done.  Hand release pushups are much tougher than regular pushups and it took me a total of 14 minute 50 seconds.

I had a coffee afterwards with one of my gym friends and she and I agreed that not enough women do weights.

When I got home the house was full again with everyone back from short long weekend trips here and there.  It was time again for our traditional Monday night dinner, and Alleluia really went all out given that she had all day to plan.

( Click for the menu and for nomulent photos )

The weekend of coupleyness continued as a friend of Helga came by with the guy she is seeing.  At one point we nearly had equal numbers of the sexes at Chez Canuck, but normality resumed soon enough.

I'm so glad I live where I do.

We're losing a housemate.  Alleluia is accepting a job offer for 12 months in Cambodia, which means we will have to find someone to replace her.  I'm not worried.  We will have plenty of time to find someone good to replace her (though naturally it is a bit sad that she's going) and there should be plenty of interest given the location and how wonderful we all are.

We've had a pretty good run.  Four of us for a whole year and nobody left.  We even managed to all move together keeping the household intact.

TW: Shoulder press 40-30-20-10 with 400m run after every set.  10 minutes flat.  Then AMRAP 12 minutes: 12 kb swings, 5 burpees - 10 rounds, 12 kb swings, 1 burpee.

Frustration seems to have caught up with me.

Yesterday there was a work lunch that involved us going down to the Canberra Yacht Club.  I don't especially like the yact club as I think the food is overpriced for what it is.  Looking around, I also foud myself annoyed by what looked like a bunch of smug grey haired people who dine in yacht clubs on Friday afternoons.  I was also annoyed by the fact that I was sat next to a co-worker who snorts when he laughs and who smelled like nicotine.  I was also annoyed by having to make conversation with a guy who used to work for W before my time and who I've seen before, but who means nothing at all to me.  I had nothing to add to conversations about home renovations or about taking the kids to see a show in Sydney on the weekend or about the footy tipping competition.  As soon as I sat down I decided I would rather have stayed at the office alone (but that would have been noticed by everyone else.)  I said very little, and I left as soon as I could.

At one point I looked out on the lake and two guys were on the lake in a canoe.  I would much rather have been doing what they were doing.  I had also read an article about the training of Navy SEALs.  I was awestruck by the Hell Week training, and sitting at lunch I would much rather have been in the early stages of hypothermia doing pushups on a beach in California than sitting in a warm dining room.  (And that's not hyperbole, that is literally true.)

Back at work, I waded through heaps of letters that had accumulated during my time away and they finally got to me.  I loathed the people who sent us timewasting letters expounding half baked ideas written by hand in difficult to decipher script and even those that were legitimate.  We even got a letter from an organisation concerned about the curriculum in schools.  This was an organisation with letterhead and with staff, and their letter began with the salutation "Dear Member of Parliament".  Attention groups trying to get the attention of politicians!  If you are going to send a letter to a politician, you might want to actually write down their name.  I am considering sending them a letter in return in an unmarked envelope and on ordinary non-letterhead paper saying "Dear Organisation, Thank you for your letter or e-mail or fax.  I value the contributions and insights of your organisation on the issues you raised, whatever they were.  I can assure you that I either agree entirely with your views, I agree with some of them, or I think you are a bunch crackpots who should be locked up until you are no longer a danger to society.  Sincerely, Random Member of Parliament to whom you wrote.  P.S. I would be happy to meet with representatives of your organisation if you can figure out which one of the 150 Members of Parliament I am."

I made it to the gym after work, with a sense of rage bubbling away beneath the surface.  On the walk to the gym I found myself having somewhat violent fantasies about taking on gangs of street thugs who dared to harass me, and sending them running before humiliating their leader by taking his shoes and shirt and pants and forcing him to walk home barefoot and clad only in his underpants.  Anyone who approached me was likely to get yelled at.

I managed the heaviest workout I've taken on since getting back from holiday.

YW: 30 80kg deadlifts, 30 pullups, run 800m - 3 rounds.

It took me just over half an hour.  I would have liked to have done it faster, but that is a lot to deadlift and pull and I found myself getting dizzy and gasping for breath more than once.  This workout really smacked me around, but luckily not a single person spoke to me the whole time.

The thing is, I didn't really feel less frustrated.  I got home and tried to set up the new modem I picked up to hopefully allow our house to get our wireless started again but could barely accomplish anything on accout of being so bent out of shape.  bakerypenguin wound up coming over to help and diagnosed the problems we had (which are the problem of our provider rather than us) and I spent most of the time thinking "I'm not well.  Something is wrong."

Helga and Alleluia and Roxy came home and we all watched Paris Je T'aime and I felt a bit better knowing there was nothing I could do, but I still went to bed all frustrated.

Today I'm feeling a bit better despite waking up at 4am due to it being the coldest night I can recall so far this year.  There will be another major workout which will probably smack me aroud some more, some shopping, and I suspect a lot of barricading myself into solitude.  Maybe I will do something nice for dinner tonight.

I don't think I'm supposed to feel like this.

I got back to Canberra last night and met Helga and Alleluia for the first time in a while.  Today we used our day off to clean the old house from top to bottom.

My jobs varied, but they tended to be the ones that nobody else wanted to do.  I went around the outside of the house with a broom sweeping away all the cobwebs that had built up.  In the process, I wound up dislodging countless spiders who wound up scuttling of or dropping off of walls and falling towards me.  Many lost their homes, and many others were killed.  Yes, in carrying out my program of genocide against the spiders who had moved into our old home, I made plenty of enemies in the spider community.  I wonder if the survivors are planning a counter attack.  (Apparently Helga felt the brunt of their counter offensive, as she got a spider bite under her eye.)

I also was tasked with washing the exterior windows and clearing out the gutters, which meant lots of climbing up and down ladders and creeping around on the roof.  It was actually kind of fun.  I had a job to do and nobody second guessed me in doing it.  I'm not all that tidy, and I think part of that goes back to my childhood when my mother insisted I do certain cleaning things, and also insisted that I do them in a specific way.  That always bothered me.  This went fine.

The job that nobody else seemed to want to do involved going into the garage (which is not all that well maintained and has had possums living in it from time to time) and clearing out several years worth of possum shit.  Using the same broom as I used on the cobwebs, I swept it out the garage door.  (It only occurred ot me afterwards that it might have been a good idea to wear a mask while sweeping possum droppings around.)

Ok, enough of that.  We were at it until about 8pm and for the last hour or so I felt I had very little to do and no knowledge of what there was left to do.  It was the only frustrating part of the day.

I tried to move some things yesterday, but the key Helga gave me only fit the side gate and not the front door.  I had packed up most of my worldly possessions that were in Chez Canuck and wanted to get them in last night before we really began to move furniture so I could get it out of the way.  I also wanted to drop off a bit of a birthday gift for Alleluia.  I picked her up some bath stuff and now that we are moving into a house with an actual bath I thought I would leave them in the bath last night so they would be waiting for her when she moved in, the rationale being that she would get a gift without having to move it.

Alas, I will have to wait until Helga gets home to get the right key.

Roxy's dad is here to help and he has come with a van (not a huge van but a van none the less) and we will move the bulk of things today.  I have had my last night of sleep in the current Chez Canuck.  Everything I do here I do for the last time now.  Soon everything I do will be the first time I have done it in the new house.

I still made it to the gym yesterday and did 10km.  I was originally planning on doing more but after my huge day of rowing yesterday and the fact that my left hand was cramping periodically made me think that it would be better to move with two functioning hands.  I am now past 150km with one week left to go.

I'm off now to have my last cuppa before moving.

My rowing is continuing nicely.

YW: 1 minute, 2 minutes... 10 minutes then five minutes to cool down, for an hour in total rowing time.  Distance: 15.5km.

I'm now at nearly 119km after this morning's row.

I think I have decided to do a 12 hour run on the first Friday in February.  My parents will be in Australia and can act as part of my support crew.  I'm not sure how to train or what my goal distance should be.  I think it will be just to keep going for the full 12 hours.  Additionally, I think I will use the opportunity to raise funds for beyondblue, a depression and anxiety charity in Australia now that they seem happy with me doing this.

Also, Dad and I will both be in Australia for the Warrior Dash which is held at the same place as the recent Mud Run.  I think he would be interested in joining me.  He normally runs marathons but he does seem to be interested in unique sporting pursuits.  The apple doesn't fall far from the tree I guess.

My friend from the Israeli Embassy came to Parliament for lunch and brought Coffee Snob and I Israeil wine.

I locked my keys in the car and didn't worry aobut it until about 4:00pm.

I spent the first two hours of the work day at my desk in my gym gear.  I had no meetings and nobody to impress, so it was rugby shorts and singlet (tank top for the Americans) until I felt like putting a suit on.

Is it possible to make Julian Assange any creepier?  Yes.  It.  Is.  Hey ladies, he's single!

Tonight we celebrate Christmas at Chez Canuck.  Pizza is on the menu and we are going ot exchange gifts.  I got a sudoku calendar for Helga who I have seen on many occasions doing sudokus from the newspaper, a set of ramekins for Alleluia who mentioned that she needed ramekins, and a bonsai tree for Roxy.  Also I got an enormous Toblerone for the house.  It comes up to my waist.

That is all.

Alleluia and I applied for two places yesterday, both in the same suburb a bit further away from work than we are now.

Alleluia and Helga had applied for some three bedroom places that wouldn't include me as a fallback measure, and their prospects were looking good.  Of course, ours looked good too, given that we turned up straight from work and probably looked more dependable than the car full of what looked like stoners who also came.  Additionally, one place was being managed by the agency we are currently renitng from.

Alleluia and Helga were going to have to say yes to one of their places unless we got a a quick and positive response from one of these.

This afternoon we were offered both.  It's not yet clear which one we will go with.  Carpet and closer to the shops and or a bit more for more space and further from the shops and wood floors that will be louder and colder in winter.  We are consulting with Helga and Roxy about their preferences, but either way it looks as though we will be staying together.

I realised last night after we put our applications in that it was entirely out of my hands.  If we heard back in time we would stay together, and if not we would be finding different places.  It was kind of liberating, and I was quite calm.

It's still a temporary place to live, but at least I will be able to leave on my own terms.

Hooray!

Does anyone remember me lashing out over the rank injustice surrounding me having to move out of my last house because one of my housemates thought there would be a conflict of interest?

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TW: This morning before work, more rowing. 6,476 metres in 30 minutes.  Stressed?  Do something physical!