pull ups (it was -3 at the time) 5, 7, 6, 6, 6, 8, 5, 5, 4 (hands were cold; not great reps)
bench press: 10 x 134, 6 x 150, 7 x 150, 6 x 150 high incline: 10 x 94, 5 x 105, 5 x 105 curls: 3 sets of 10 4 inch deadlifts: 10 x 134, 10 x 184, 10 x 234
Note: no knee pain last night (treadmill the day before)
Note: while I feel 100 times better than I did last week, I still coughed after the higher exertion sets.
Yesterday: 3.1 on the treadmill in 45 (per Garmin; my treadmill’s reading gave me a sub 13 pace), then a 1.2 mile commuter walk.
I felt good enough to try more of a workout. PT Pull ups (while it was snowing): 7, 7, 6, 5, 5, 6,5, 4 (mixed grip), 4 (mixed grip), 1 (to get to 50 reps) Swiss bench: 10 x 134, 3 x 150 (missed with rep 4), 7 x 134 (first rep was a pin press) regular bench: 5 x 150 (harder than it should have been)
high incline: 10 x 94, 5 x 105, 5 x 105 curls: 3 sets of 10. Then a 15:4x ish walk outside on *mostly* plowed walks. I wore my heavier shoes. Had some knee pain last night so I iced today.
Coughing: still cough during exertion (right afterward) but it has calmed down quite a bit.
Plan: maybe a bit harder tomorrow: challenge myself to 5K?
Basketball obsession: watched the Bradley men on TV (picked up just before halftime due to the longest game ever before) and the Bradley women on ESPN+; at first I had the women on the phone and the men on the laptop. Both won 2 point games (Drake, Indiana State). I payed more attention to the women’s game as it ran a shorter time; then I watched the conclusion of the men’s game.
I admit that I’ve never been one who believed that the government ought to be “run like a business.” A business’s primary objective is to turn a profit, which means charging as much as they can while minimizing expenses. If the customers are upset by, say, the lack of quality or by poor service, in theory, they can go elsewhere.
In contrast, the government should be there to serve the public good. It might mean doing things like basic research, which is rarely profitable (though one might note that the COVID vaccines were developed so quickly due to the “off the shelf” SARS research that had been done previously). It might mean providing services that are not always cost efficient or might prove to be not cost efficient.
Also, let’s look at safety net programs. If one is too tight on preventing abuse of the program, one might put in too many safeguards and either make it very difficult to use or make some needy people (through no fault of their own) ineligible.
Of course, that does NOT mean the government should be wantonly irresponsible or corrupt, and without safeguards, audits and checks, it is almost certain to be. Hence, I think that audits can be a good thing.
But audits should be carefully and competently done. That means: use experienced, credentialed forensic accountants and a mix of IT people: both the brilliant (but possibly inexperienced) and the experienced that understand the older IT systems and languages like COBOL.
So, we get to President Musk claiming that “150 year old people are getting Social Security benefits:”
I picked it up a little. I still cough with too much exertion.
PT deadlifts: 10 x 134, 10 x 184, 10 x 234, 1 x 300 4 inch. Latter was too ragged.
10 x 280 6 inch. Felt ok.
Then I did a 2.4 mile walk; the first mile was slow due to a slushy start, but campus was ok and I finished at 15:30 for the dry miles, just over 16 for the whole thing.
On Sunday, a routine workout felt harder than it should have been and tired me out. I felt burning in the nose: the type before a bug hits.
Bam. I did not test, but the symptoms point to the common flu.
Monday: managed a 1 mile walk; body aches, fatigue and a dry cough. Taught my classes remotely and went to bed afterward.
Tuesday: worked remotely. Cough. Body aches. Fatigue…up the stairs was a major chore. Slept the afternoon, went to bed at 6:45. Nasal drainage. Headache
Wednesday: today: much better. Only 1 shot of Dayquil. 1 mile walk; stairs, light snow shoveling were all ok.
I’ve been masking around others (especially B) and sleeping in the “goat house.” Coughing: occurs in infrequent spurts.
My cough is much better, but my nose feels as if I had swam 5k in a heavily chlorinated pool. It just burns.
Knee pain: much less of it Saturday night. I had a LOT of it on Friday night; wonder if I am cycling wrong. Next time: check the seat height?
Workout notes:
Saturday: started with a slowish 5K walk (16:54) and then weights; pull ups: 5 sets of 5, 8, 4, 3 sets of 5, 4 singles. Kind of a rough one. bench (Swiss bar), 10 x 134, 4 x 150, 4 x 150, 4 x 145, 5 x 145 incline: 4 x 134 high incline: 2 sets of 10 x 94 curls: 2 sets of 15.
Sunday: deadlifts: 4 inch: 10 x 134, 10 x 184, 10 x 234, 1 x 300 6 inch: 10 x 280 (good thigh burn) Then I drove out to Rock Island trail: missed the Alta road turn going out: 4 miles in 15:15 per mile, with the final mile being 14:47.
I admit it: I underestimated Trump’s political ability. Let’s first look at his current approval rating:
From the Pew article:
“Trump’s current 47% approval rating is higher today than it was at the beginning of his first term in office.
His rating is also higher than at any other point in his first four-year term, and far higher than when he left office in early 2021 (Trump’s approval fell to 29% in the wake of the 2020 presidential election and his rejection of its results)”
“A Quinnipiac University poll released Wednesday had this stunning finding: While Americans were about evenly split in their views of the Republican Party (43 percent favorable to 45 percent unfavorable), negative views of the Democratic Party outpaced positive ones by 26 points — 31 percent favorable to 57 percent unfavorable.
That’s not only a huge imbalance but also an unprecedented one.
In fact, Democrats’ 57 percent unfavorable rating is their highest ever in Quinnipiac’s polling, dating back to 2008, while the GOP’s 43 percent favorable rating is its highest ever.”
And, the Democrats appear to have not changed their minds at all. The Bernie types think is because the Democrats didn’t run a “tax the billionaires and give the poor free stuff” type campaign. The wokes: well, the Democrats didn’t back Hamas or perhaps it was because they didn’t push for reparations for Black people, etc.
It appears to me that every block that normally associates with the Democratic party is utterly blind to how those outside the block views them.
Take a look at some of the protests. You have the pro-Mexican migrants marching…waving…Mexican flags. That is a weird way to try to make the point that you want to remain in the United States.
Take a look at some of the pushback against, well, in this case, a genuine racist in government:
I think much of the problem is the divide between the academic and non-academic worlds. In academia: the “not-privileged” has a green light to throw rocks at the “privileged.” It does not work that way in the rest of society.
And, by nature, the Democrats want to see themselves the “ally” of “the marginalized.” Well, almost by definition, “the marginalized” are unpopular with the public. So, that is a handicap right at the start.
And so Trump takes advantage of this. He signs executive orders such as the ones that bans transwomen from competing in women’s divisions (yes, the correct call..but this is a tiny issue). Yes, the Democrats can’t help but rally around the unpopular position.
Trump attacks DEI, which, frankly, IS unpopular. Yes, a “fair shot” is popular, but what DEI means, *in practice* is dreary HR mandated training and often unfunded mandates which makes more uncompensated work for everyone else.
Trump has a good feel for what people resent and he attacks that.
By the way, I am still sorry that Trump won; I voted Harris. But my goodness, the Democrats have made themselves toxic.
The message appears to be: “The Democrats are for everyone BUT you, and Trump is for YOU.” Yes, it is a damned lie, but it sells.
I’ll contrast what working out used to be like with what it is like now.
Today: I did back/shoulder/knee PT exercises for about 20-30 minutes. Then bike: 36 minutes for 10 fake miles. Then a walk for 36 minutes (slow). 72 minutes of working out AFTER the physical therapy.
In the day: no PT, and the 72 minutes was a 10 mile run on a good day, and 8.5 miles on an off day.
Weight training: usually 50 reps of pull ups, 4 sets of bench press, 3 sets of curls, 3 sets of high incline presses. This takes 70-80 minutes. The pull ups: mostly sets of 5-7 and, on a good day, set of 10.
In the day: many more exercises and more sets. Pull ups: 50 reps were 1 set of 20, 2 sets of 15 on a great day, or maybe 2 sets of 15, 3 sets of 10.
We won’t even count the weights involved, though a set of 10 used to be with 200-225 lb. Now it is 145.
The let’s talk post-workout: in the day, I didn’t worry about going hard in a morning workout. I even did races from time to time. I still had energy to do my job. No longer.
And then there are the chronic conditions: I deal with 3 almost on a daily basis: shoulder, knee, lumbar. That is NOT unusual for 65 and older. In fact, it is to be expected.
The upshot: one has to adjust one’s expectations and one has to be accepting.
Last night’s knee pain was not as great as the night before, and as I write this, my knees feel great.
Today: 36:10 on the bike (10 fake miles); warmed up for 10 minutes and did 5 sets of 1 minute at 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. That took me to 35. Then: a slow 2 mile cool down walk outside with knee braces. Later: 1 mile commuter walk (at a faster pace than the cool down).
Life of an old goat 