Day: May 16, 2020

Come on Media: we really do not need this..

IMHO, one of the reasons we have less unity than I’d like with respect to social distancing measures is that there is a significant subset of the population that does not trust the media to tell the truth. This isn’t to say that there aren’t a fair number of Republicans on board; there are.

But dammit; the mainstream media doesn’t help things when it tries to sensationalize.

Now none of this says that Texas made the right choice, but if you test more people, you WILL get a spike in the number of positives. The “positive rate” is important, of course, (and false positives aren’t as frequent if the true infection rate isn’t very small) but they are showing the number of confirmed positives.

That is just fuel for the MUH FREEDUMS morons.

And of course, it is important to know where the outbreaks are coming from: are they concentrated in a single location or in a type of place, or all over?

Bottom line: try to report with the nuance.

Related notes: this is an interesting article about some writing during the pandemic in London in 1660’s.

A bit about the journey

I did a “farmer’s walk” (walk with a dumbbell or barbell) to try them out. You are supposed to use heavy weights for these; I need to work up to that. So I stuck with 134 lb.
The walk felt familiar..then I realized why…the weight I was walking with was the excess weight I used to carry every single day.

Note: the younger, fatter guy, was actually much stronger (could dead lift and bench press a whole lot more); the older, slimmer guy can walk faster and do many more pull ups. The younger guy was better at research level math; the older guy has much broader knowledge but less ability to “dive deep.”

On to new challenges

Well, grades were turned in yesterday. And so ended the online semester. I did walk 5 miles prior to that (my hill course).
Today, I didn’t walk at all (right knee is not quite right) but I did have an interesting lifting session:

rotator cuff and some free squats.
pull ups: 10, 5, 5, 10, 10, 5, 5, 5, 3, 3 (5 of the sets of 5 were chin ups; I did a few wide drip, and the final 5, 3, 3 were a penalty set for sloppy reps.
then to the basement for bench presses, and taking weights outside as rests:
10 x 132 , 5 x 176 (hard), 5 x 170, 5 x 170 (reasonable)
Outside:
3 sets of 5 x 94 “clean and press”: one clean for each press. Ugh. Got them all; wasn’t easy.
3 sets of 8 x 134 trap bar row.
dumbbell shoulder press: 6, 10, 10 with 44 lb. dumbbells.
trap bar dead lift: 10 x 178, 2 x 200, 5 x 200, 5 x 200, 10 x 178
farmer’s walk: to the side door to the garage and back: 2 44 lb dumbbells, then 134 (trap bar)
If you don’t know what a farmer’s walk is: (ignore that she is doing MORE than DOUBLE what I did my heaviest with today)




And “my” bunny paid a visit..hopped right past me and wasn’t really bothered by me at all.

Yeah, I admit that seeing myself in a sleveless shirt was distressing. 20 years ago, I looked a bit different:

But you know what? That isn’t coming back.
As my wife likes to remind me: “be grateful you aren’t cutting tennis balls to go on the bottom of your walker.”
And the old body..the visual of it..is helpful. Sometimes I think “maybe I am just not putting enough effort into it” when in fact, “”it” just isn’t there.” You can SEE it ..or the lack thereof.

The reality is my choices are: “do it and suck” or “don’t do it at all.” That’s it.

Something more hopeful: I wonder how a farmer’s walk up a hill might go? Do I take my trap bar to Bradley Park with some 45’s and try? The hill from lower to upper Bradley Park is blocked off.