One Good Day

Yesterday’s post was one where I explained this blog but I think this was the only one I wrote. At this point work got crazy and I was pulling eighty hour work weeks.

For those who have never been healthy gaining good health will always be hard. I spent the next weeks at this job too overworked to perform my at work workouts. Then the company lost the contract.  

On the next job I didn’t have water bottles to work out with, but I did have loads of work to do so it made no difference. Security guards are always trying to get something related to their life done at work. I’ve seen guards cook on a bbq, train togs, play instruments, nit, play video games, and run printing equipment. The level of WTF is unfathomable.  

What I did was nothing abnormal. It’s just too bad I couldn’t keep it up.

16^th December 2005

Exercises: 10 3by3 sets

Given that I must start using the specific jargon of my workouts this must be the time to explain them. I have three workout forums, my work, my home, my gym. Each has its own uses, but it is the combination of all of them that in important in achieving results.

The primary use of my work for fitness is maintenance. There are exercises that I can do at work that help me to maintain my level of fitness. The exercise I have begun with is the 3by3 or three gallon workout. You start with a three-gallon jug of water full all the way to the top and caped then you do ten pullovers, ten curls, and ten “strait up” lifts each arm.

Guess I never finished this blog. Well I never checked to see if it was posted on Myspace. Not even sure I can get into my Myspcae account any longer to check 

Ocean Shiver

 

Valve Stem Disaster

9^th December 2011

Dear Cassi, 

   

It’s been a hard day. I finally got the call on Friday that my new washer and dryer would be in, and I decided to mop under the old ones. I’ve had issues with things growing in the detritus of my home so getting it into the garbage has been a major push for me over the last few months.

   

I pulled the washer and dryer away from the wall and tried to close the shutoff calves on the washer when one of the valves broke. The handle came off in my handed leaving the exposed stem in the wall.

   

I looked into the pit of old chrome and there around the bolt was a star of brass which was the end of the stem. This was bad. I had dealt with this kind of bad before, but it was bad that was never easy do deal with.

   

I snapped a picture of the stem with my cell and ran out to the hardware store to get a replacement. When I got there I looked at the new brass and had no idea which one would work so I took out my phone, and the images hadn’t saved.

   

I grown and came back home realizing that there was no two ways about it, I had to have the old valve with me when I got the new one. Then came the fun part, the valve was not only stuck but plastered over and too deep to get a wrench around.

   

I pounded the wall open then found a box wrench that fit and finally got the dang thing out. I ran out and got two new valves in the holiday traffic, came home, and got the water on in time to shower for work.

   

Just as I’m getting ready for work my neighbor calls to tell me he can help. It’s been a long day.

Plumbing sucks,

Richard Leland Neal

California Heat

Well, here is a letter to Cassi, and one that isn’t more than a year old. Well, I’m slowly braking away from my depression, so I should be able to post regularly.

I go over my old letters every now and again, and look after the ones that I think make interesting reading. I should have a year’s worth of letters sitting around. Getting them up is en effort some times, but I always feel better once I’ve done so.

5^th July 2011

Dear Cassi,

The California heat has drained me of my strength. The hottest hours of the day I reserve for sleep, but this activity would be impossible if not for the fan constantly taking the sweat from my skin. The air is like a dog’s breath, and I awaken feeling like a soul trapped in a corpse. Even as I write this I’m forced to take the refuge of sleep on again before I can continue.

We celebrate the past with fireworks that sap the air of what we breathe. Our celebrations would be so much more enjoyable if we hadn’t already poisoned the sky. We breathe to blacken our lungs more than to stay alive.

I’m not the only person down here with depression, and that is the strangest thing in the land of sunshine and amusement parks. Once again the world is wonderful, but we in it making each other miserable.

Slowly I can feel life returning to my body as the water I drank filters through. They say it can take as much as six hours for the body to absorb water back into its extremities. Why this happens I can only speculate. I would think that water must first be returned to the brain, but still it must be tapped from the gut, run through the blood, and seep back into the outer bits of the body. That is a long way for water to go, and it has to change along the way.

The human body, like the modern life, is a complicated thing, full of odd bits and trimmings, and ever in a state of half balance. It is a strange luck that we can think at all with the labyrinth of half functioning bits we need to deal with.

Living is a complicated piece of work and the marvels of this world are things we rarely look at. We are things of shadow and dust made whole through water and air.

Stay safe, Cassi

Richard Leland Neal