100 Pushup Challenge and another review

Way back in the day when I was stationed with the Marines, we did a lot of push ups. A lot. Large quantities. Numerous push ups of every shape and size. Now that I'm older, fatter, and in dire need of getting into shape I've been reevaluating the push up. I've started a push up regime with a goal of 100 consecutive push ups (done correctly, none of this bobbing up and down junk) and I've been experimenting with a piece of equipment that has been kicking my butt. Ladies and gentlemen, I introduce to you the Perfect Push up (cue angelic music).

First, a little bit about the push up. While push ups themselves are very simple exercises to perform, they are actually bio-mechanically a very sophisticated exercise, recruiting nearly every major muscle group in some way to support the body during the movement (provided you are doing them with correct form.)
The push up is also extremely versatile, letting you emphasize certain muscle groups by simple changes in hand-arm positioning (wide versus narrow), incline or decline, or through elevation of the hands, which deepens the range of motion.

I don't have a very good history with push ups, for some reason my elbows like to drift out to the sides and I recruit more shoulder than chest. This has given me some problems with my shoulders and they tend to get rotator cuff injuries fairly often. Also, because the hands are in a fixed position, the wrists tend to become strained fairly easily. The Perfect Push Up corrects these problems for me, and also offers some added benefits.

The Perfect Push up basically takes a standard push up bar, which keeps your wrists in a neutral, non-bent position, and attaches the push up bar to a rotating base. This base allows you to maintain neutral wrist position while simultaneously rotating your arms (primarily at the wrist.) This ability to rotate is intended to allow you to compensate for your own bio-mechanics by taking stress off from the wrists and shoulders. If you've seen the commercial, it's like throwing a punch at the floor. The added twist in the movement recruits more stabilizer muscles and gives you a better bang for the buck. I've noticed new soreness in my lats, shoulders, chest and surprisingly in my abs. Doing the push ups correctly (IE SLOWLY and in good form) has really helped my abs and lower back.

Overall, I highly recommend the Perfect Push Up. Using this as an aid has made me pay more attention to form and offered a greater challenge than just push ups alone. I think I'm about 4 weeks from doing 100 consecutive push ups in good form, and it's been almost 10 years since the last time I could do that. You can pick one up for about $20 at Wal-Mart or any other retail store.

My Favorite Stephen King short story

I'm a huge Stephen King fan. My dad is a big reader and had a pretty decent sized library down in the basement. Stephen's books took up a good sized portion on one of the shelves, and during my teenage years I read all of King's books as fast as I could. I saw one book next to it that I had regularly ignored since it didn't have King's name on it. My dad recommended it to me, explaining, "It's written by Stephen King, just under a different name." I read it, loved it, and a fan of Richard Bachman/Stephen King was born.

The Long Walk is one of four short stories in The Bachman Books, published under the name Richard Bachman. The story is set in the "near future" around the annual Long Walk contest. Each year 100 boys are selected out of a pool to participate in this event, with the winner of the walk receiving The Prize - anything the winner wants for the rest of his life. Girls need not apply. Apparently the near future is sexist in nature.

Sounds like a pretty good deal, doesn't it? The catch is this. The 100 boys start at the Canadian/Maine border and walk south along the highway. If they walk slower than 4 mph for 30 seconds in an hour (all of the boys are monitored by following trucks filled with soldiers) they get a warning. Three warnings and you get a Ticket. Meaning you get shot. Dead. Game over. Do not pass GO, do not collect $200. You can get a warning erased from your record by going a full hour without getting a warning. So, if you have no warnings, within 2 minutes you can go from sitting pretty to lying face down in the road with acute lead poisoning. So it's 100 boys walking south waiting for 99 of them to crap out and get eliminated in the truest sense of the word.

Warnings are also given for infractions such as "assaulting other walkers or getting aid from the spectators", and instant Tickets are punched for "attacking the vehicles and/or soldiers, or attempting to leave the road." There are no rests stops, they get all the water they want from canteen provided by the accompanying soldiers, are issued daily rations at 9 AM every day, and all of their "business" has to be taken care of while walking.

This is a physical and mental trial that I think could make a brilliant movie if it followed the book. There is a lot of psychological intrigue in to why these boys signed up for this, the alliances formed, and the all too real truth of death. One of the walkers signed up as a means of suicide. How messed up is that? The walk itself is kind of a by line (IMHO), the real meat of the story lies in the characters. The partnerships, the antagonists, the internal struggle with knowing that there is a 1% chance of winning. How many people would knowingly go into something like this knowing that there is a 99% chance of them dying. In front of spectators. Oh yeah, people line all up and down the road watching these guys walk. It's like the Super Bowl, World Series and NCAA Basketball Finals all rolled into one.

Sadly, The Bachman Books is no longer in print, but a copy is easily picked up second hand on the Internet. Another short story, Rage, is a strong resemblance to the recent Columbine shootings that have been occurring lately (albeit written in the early 70's, it is eerily prophetic). As stated on Stephen King's website, "There will be no future printings of this book at Stephen's request due to the sensitive nature of the material found in Rage." If you want to pick up a copy, hit your local library or just break down and by it here.

This made my day

Post Office Rant

To the jerk at the post office who held up the line for 17 minutes (yes, I timed it) while weighing and stamping 4 boxes of packages and letters.

I mean, seriously. We know you're a big wheeler and dealer in the Ebay game, we heard about it multiple times during this mailing process, which I believe started sometime roughly in the Paleolithic Age. We don't care that you're making a killing on Ebay. We don't care that you can quit your regular job "in a few years" and live solely off the Ebay tit. We don't care that "this is the third month in a row of growing profits!"

All I wanted to do was hop in, mail out my package, and be on my merry way. Still, even my humble wishes seem to be out of reach. What we do care is that you're holding up a line of people for something that should have been done at your house. Wow, here's some more people coming in, assessing the situation and then hunkering down with the rest of us while to diddle around up there and launch into another epic tale of internet glory.

Here's a hint. Write this down, idiot. When even the postal worker recommends that you get a postal scale for your home, i'd take it as a very very strong hint. Look to the left, see that postal scale on the wall. It's for sale. Buy it. Take it home, get online and buy some postage. I'll even give you a head start. Go to www.usps.com and buy some. Then, weigh and print out your own postage at home and regale your cat or dog with whimsical stories of how Mrs. Muddlehoffer in Bent Elk, North Dakota got totally screwed on the commemorative Elvis plate you're sending her. I don't care that you got it at some garage sale for $2 and sold it to some housewife for $30. The 11 other people with me don't care. Oh, and the best part is that since you make a sizeable income from this Ebay thing, IT'S ALL TAX DEDUCTABLE. That means it's pretty much FREE! So thanks for making me wait all that time with 3 kids, a bunch of pissed off rednecks and one increasingly pissed off postal worker. You know they're on a hair trigger as it is.

Oh, and it really put the cherry on our sundae when you took out the paperback book and started reading. Nice. Epic. You sir, have cast iron balls. Thanks for making my life and my time that much more precious. Dick.

I knew he was out there!

The Man Box

Every guy should have a man box. A man box, to the uninitiated, is a box (duh) that a guy uses to put mementos, personal affects or cool little trinkets to pass on to their kids. I've had one for about 20 years, and the contents are ever changing. Currently this is what's in my box.







I use an old Jack Daniel's tin. Why?

#1. Because it's freakin' cool.

#2. Because I have a lot of crap that a cigar box wouldn't hold

#3. I like JD. Don't judge me.




And this, ladies and gentlepeople, is the contents:














Let's break it down, starting at 12 o'clock high on the picture. That's at the tippy top for all you public school kids.

Various patches, rank insignia, military patches, unit coin and my Navy ring. The smaller gold ring is the signet ring my grandfather wore when he was alive. Going clockwise we have a money clip (i have no money, so the clip is delegated to the box), a Fleet Marine Force Special Warfare qualification badge, my dog tags with jerry rigged silencers on the chain, a couple of extra medals from back in the day, a Good Conduct (suprised?) and National Defense, my SOG knife I used while in the Gulf, and at the 6 o'clock position a mouth piece. I have a thing about my teeth, and one of my old room mates was a dental tech and made if for me. Again, don't judge. Kind of in the middle are a couple of pocket knives, my grandpa's watch, about 3/4 of my ribbons and awards (GO NAVY!), my boatswain's pipe (not the cool kind, settle down kids), and a necklace my parents gave me when I graduated high school. I think they were kind of relieved. And finally a handful of the old silver half dollars. Just because.

So get out there, gather up your little bits o'you and put them together in a place the kids aren't allowed to mess with. Let it be the "mystery box." Or the Man Box, whatever.