The Funnier Side in the Pursuit of Fitness

So here I am laying in bed drinking my protein shake after another intense workout. Wow, I love P90X!  I am sweating just typing out the name of the program.  These workouts can really kick my butt.  I just completed week 5 and have enjoyed most of my time.  Let’s just say the first full week I was letting Tony Horton know, through the TV, what I think about his workouts.  Good thing only my two dogs were around while I worked out then.  LOL!

All in all this entire program is the best thing I have ever done for myself, physically speaking.  I have been an athlete my whole life, and I use the term athlete loosely.  But I have been playing sports since the time I could demand such a thing from my parents.  I have played hockey, baseball, lacrosse, football, cycling, running, and now softball.  As I aged I noticed the contact sports have gone to the way side and the cycling, running and softball are more my speed now.  But how do I stay in shape enough to still be effective and enjoy these things at the same time?  Well, exercise  and I just figured that out a few years back.

It’s not just exercise but the stretching and alternative activities that keep the body ready for action.  Just a few years ago I realized that my old body couldn’t take the pounding it used to.  I tried out for a football team while I was in Japan.  The military base had a traveling adult league team that took in new players every year to fill positions.  I figured with my size and my prior experience I would be a shoe in.  Boy was that a mistake.  These guys were serious and they made me prove my worth by going up against their best guy at each position I wanted to play opposite of.  Let’s just say I had a few pieces of humble pie.

Realizing my new found limitations to a sport I once loved, I needed to figure something out.  I then found my new love in softball.  The military base also had a traveling softball team.  These guys were serious too but without all the hitting and tackling.  I found my new sport!  But I soon found out that regardless of the position I was to play I had to compete.  And to compete with a bunch of military guys that are required to be fit, I needed to be fit too.

I decided to toss my pride aside and try new techniques.  I talked a few other guys into trying Pilates with me.  This class was a total surprise.  I had no idea that something without weights could be so demanding.  I really liked it but it came with it’s embarrassing moments too.  Not that you all need to know this but I’m a sweater.  I sweat no matter what I do; sit, stand, run, walk, etc. and it doesn’t matter what season of the year it is either.  Well, these classes were in a small enclosed area in a gym that loved to have the heat on.

I guess since I shared that little piece and grossed you all out I can let you in on the funny and yet embarrassing thing that happened.  There is this one move in Pilates as well as yoga (which I now love too) called the plow pose.  In this pose you lay on your back and raise your legs over your body and attempt to place your feet by your head.  Well, my gut and lack of flexibility at the time didn’t allow me to get my legs very far over my body.  So the instructor came over to me and offered assistance.  I said it is not necessary as I felt this was as far as I could go anyway.  She insisted on pushing my legs further back to gain the flexibility a little at a time.  I gave in to her request.  I gave a quick warning of my slick sweaty body.  She laughed and said not to worry we all sweat.  To shorten this story, I ended up with an instructor falling on me as her hands slipped off my legs.  Embarrassing……but funny now that I look back at it.

So what is my point to all of this?  You should always take the good with the bad.  Life gives us the little experiences that enrich and amuse us.  We get to share these moments with other people in search of the same answer your quest has already brought you to.

Thanks for reading!

Global Issues

Hello again Everyone!

I wanted to dig a little deeper today and share a little from my Masters program in International Relations.  I feel that sometimes we get a little too wrapped up in pop culture and forget that there is more in the world than our own little bubble. Take a few minutes to read a little and if you wouldn’t mind leave me some feedback and maybe we could have a discussion on the issues at hand.  Maybe your issues are in a different order or you have different issues.  Enjoy reading!

The mind-boggling number of different global issues facing the international system today are too numerous to list but we, as evaluators of the system, can list the most important based on our self-reference criteria and ethnocentrism.  Many on my list can be listed together since they deal with the same main “Larger” issue or category.  The top 9 of my personal list of issues are:

1. Terrorism
2. Human Rights: Racism – Child Rights
3. Poverty – food aid
4. Energy consumption – Environmental concerns
5. World health: obesity – disease control
6. Foreign Policy (all countries)
7. International Law
8. Education
9. World population

Looking at all of the different possible global issues facing the international system today, they all seem inter-related.  Regardless of which issue you try to isolate from the others it seems difficult to not see another issue as a cause or effect from that single issue.  An example: take the ever-growing problem of the world population.  Where is this major issue a problem?  Africa, Asia, and Latin America.

Why is this a problem in these areas?  It could be a multitude of issues like basic education on Planned Parenthood or contraception, migration for work purposes or even refugees fleeing other countries for a large number of reasons.  Then there can be a link from the education and migration problem with economic problems which could stem from and link to corrupt governments or an unstable political environment.  With a corrupt government who is left to enforce any type of environmental restrictions on industry?  Even with the EPA and possibly the International Criminal Court (which seems lacking power without the involvement of the US) or any other parts of the UN or international law’s involvement doesn’t seem to faze these governments.  Which leads to other problems like the harboring of terrorists, war and etc.

The point is, I can go on and on linking one issue with others and start over and create new links.  The problem is: where do we as players in this cruel game, if possible, help in solving these issues?  Or even; if we could pin point the worst of the problems and if we could solve them, would it help the world as a whole or just those individual states or nation-states?

Something To Think About

Hello Everyone!  Sorry for this late post but I have been fighting a migraine headache today and just can’t stare at a computer very long.  So instead of leaving you all hanging I want to share something I wrote one night when I couldn’t sleep.  It might seem a bit scattered but that is what happens when you write with insomnia.  Enjoy!

The Question

Have you ever wondered what would happen if what you believed in wasn’t real?  Now I’m not going to bring in the topic of religion because that sparks too many debates and this is not what I want to focus on in our discussion.  What I’m talking about is what we have in our possession in today’s world.  All of these great gadgets that our ancestors could never have dreamed of existing are what I’m specifically targeting.

Let’s look at the most used of our belongings, the automobile.  What if for a second you stopped believing in the process that makes the car run.  You no longer believe that fuel burns in such a way that causes an explosion that creates a chain reaction that turns all of these things in the engine that then moves all the other mechanisms in the car.  Just for a second.  Think about it.  What would happen to the reason you were in the car to begin with?  What would happen to you?  Take this a little further and imagine that because you don’t believe in the miracle of the combustion engine or any engine for that matter.  What if you believed you were smarter than your brain’s function and thought that if you didn’t drive the engine would work?  So you take a bus.  But because you don’t believe in the invention the bus won’t run either.  All because you started to ask the question, “If what makes this function, isn’t so.”

Billions of people take for granted that what we have, is supposed to be.  I hate flying and for the reason I described above.  What if all of a sudden because I questioned the whole process of flight the plane ceases to function and plummets to the ground?  Well, I guess you all would be glad because you wouldn’t have this Doubting Dan in existence and you would be able to fly again.  So let’s take this a little further.  What if because one person questions the invention, any invention and at any point in time, it will no longer be a useful instrument in our lives?  I often think of this question.  It could be because I am worried that I will wake up one day and the house I thought I was sleeping in no longer is there.  Or the TV, the computer, the radio or any of my everyday items I use is no longer there.  All because what I thought was real, really wasn’t because I no longer believed in our ability to have made such an item to work.

Everyone who reads this will probably just shrug it off and say I’m crazy.  But think about it for a second.  The most powerful thing in our lives is our brain.  What if we just have not tapped into the power of negative thought and its potential to do evil?  We see what happens when we say negative things to each other.  We see hate and dislike everyday of our lives.  We pay people in our businesses to do the statistical analysis on when things will go bad.  We always look at the negative things in life but never really talk about its effect on what is around us.  Oh yes, we do worry about how it might affect us individually but not to our entire surroundings.

I like to use movies when describing some things to people just because more people can relate to what is being discussed.  I love scary movies.  I can’t get enough of them.  I’m not sure if it is the scare or the thrill I get when the bad thing gets the stupid teenager.  But I do know that because we believe evil exists we have these themed movies.  Where did this thought even originate?   I believe it is because of negative thinking.  And negative thinking to me is a root of evil and that is why we have these movies.  Take for example zombie movies.  Someone was messed up enough to think, “Hey, what if all of a sudden the dead will no longer be dead and they will walk among us and eat us if they catch us.”  Now the genera has been taken way past the innocent black and white “oh it only happened for a night” to it is a total inhalation of the human population on earth and only a few live to suffer a lonely existence among the living dead.

We like to see the innocent get taken down.  I think here in America that is one of our favorite pastimes.  We also watch the evening news to see what horrible things happened while we were out.  We love to hear about how public figures fail and ruin their lives because of mistakes they make based on greed or lust.  And what is with this obsession with people reading the obituaries?  Don’t you think if you really cared about someone you would know if they died or not?  So why are people reading these things?  I say it’s because we want to know who we outlived.  And isn’t that a little evil?

What am I really trying to say through this whole thing?  I think I really want us as a race, and that is the human race if you are confused, to look at what we do in the world.  Look at what consequences our thoughts and actions lead to.  Negative people breed negative thoughts.  Negative thoughts lead to negative actions.  Negative actions lead others to not believe in what we have accomplished in our lives.  Think about it.

Evil rises from the ashes of the negative doings of one’s negative thoughts.

The First!

Hello World!

At least that is what the first auto-created title was called.  I figured it was a proper way to begin this first ever blog of my life.  Cheesy?  Yeah, probably.  But I have no idea who will be reading my blogs as of yet.  I didn’t want to alienate anyone.

There are so many topics I can’t wait to write about.  I have many experiences that I wish to share.  You will find that I have opinions on a lot of issues but as I have learned through my educational career; opinions are just that, opinions and not the final word.

What will I share with you?  I plan on sharing anything that comes to mind as often as possible.  I do not see any limits to what I will write about.  If you take a look at my profile you will see that I’m a military spouse that has enjoyed seeing the world with my beautiful wife.  I feel I have a special point of view having the non traditional position being a male married to the military member.  I know I have experienced things that will make you shake your head, cry, and of course laugh (probably at me).

I look forward to a long relationship with my readers.  I encourage feedback.  Please let me know what you think or if you have questions and I promise to keep the discussion going with my responses.

So, CHEERS to a new and exciting experience along with new friendships!