Man O’ Manny

If you have turned the TV on and casually flipped the channels past some news and sports channels, chances are that you had been seeing that Manny Ramirez has been the hot topic of discussion.  Most importantly, if you are living in the New England area, you were probably plagued with a “Breaking News” report on the story.  Of course, as with any sport related report, there are mixed opinions up the wazoo.  Bottom line:

The Ramirez Trade: Good For Boston’s Composure; Possibly Bad for Boston’s WS Run
Good For LA’s WS Run; Bad For LA’s Composure.

Let’s face it; I am a Boston fan….and lets face it, they are right when they say that Boston fan’s are ruthless.  Talk to majority of Boston fans, and you will hear phrases such as “good riddance”, “finally”, and “I never liked his attitude anyway.”  Heck, if you were watching last night’s game you probably even heard the famous voice of Jerry Remy state that he is tired of the situation and the Red Sox should just let him go and be done with it.  Chances are, the next time he comes back, he will be Boo’ed and heckled…but that should come as no surprise, just look at what happened to Johnny Damon.

All day I have been hearing comments and jokes about how the Red Sox are going to suck now because Manny is gone…tell a Yankee fan that they would be the worst team in baseball without A-Rod and you may just get your ear talked off with the “its not a one man sport” chatter.  Now granted if you came and watched a Sox game with me, you would have definately heard chants of “Manny” coming out of my mouth, but with a guy like that you almost need to “suck up” to ensure that he is going to play to his fullest potential…don’t we all remember his quote:

Forget about the trade, man. This is the place I want to be, man. It’s great, man. They love me here, man. This is the place to be. ‘Manny being Manny,’ he’s great, man… we’ve been through a lot, this is the place for me, I’m just happy to be here… I’m back!

This coming during a time that he was Boo’d two games straight for talking about getting out of Boston…but then after recieving a standing ovation when he needed him to get some runs.  Then again, we are talking about a guy who has the attention span of a 4 year old child in the middle of a toy store.  Lets look at his most note-able “changes in attitude”

December ‘01 – In his first season with Boston he claimed he was uncomfortable, and wanted his own room so that he could ease his way into the group

August ‘03 – He stated that he would like to go play for the Yankees

September ‘03 – Benched for a game because he refused to pinch hit

July ‘05 – More trade talks, stating he doesn’t want to be in Boston

October ‘07 – Stated that loosing a chance at the World Series wouldn’t be the end of the world

In any sport, you are motivated by your peers, and just imagine being on a team with a person who is always talking about leaving, speaking to the  media about how he hates it here, and finding ways out of playing.  Again, to put it in bigger perspective, A-Rod is commended for his composure during all of the recent media exposure….do you think the team would be doing as well if A-Rod showed up at the clubhouse upset, talking about not playing, stating that he hates living in NY?  Again, I use A-Rod not to express my distaste, but because he is on the other side of the spectrum when compared to Manny.

April ‘94 – As a rookie, hits a ground rule double, but runs the bases as if he hit a home run and was eventually tagged out

July ‘04 – Cuts off a throw from Damon, allowing a critical run to score for the opposing team

April ‘05 – In a bases loaded situation, Manny hits what would have been a single, but because of his lack of effort in running to first base, a double play is turned and the inning ended

October ‘07 – Hits a long double, but stands at the plate, watching what he thought would be a home run, thus getting a late start and grabbing a single base on a double base depth ball

July ‘08 – After making an attempt for a diving catch on a would-be-single, Manny looses sight of the ball, and rolls around trying to find it.  Upon finding the ball, he casually rolls the ball into the infield while laughing, thus turning a triple out of a single-depth ball

Manny is a great player, no doubt about that, but sometimes motivating a team to win championships isn’t all about the hitting, but moreso about leadership.  If Manny is the reason that we won Championships…imagine what we could do with someone who actually focuses more on playing the game, rather than having the game revolve around him…..will we possibly get our answer with Jason Bay?

Bay:
G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO SB CS AVG OBP SLG OPS
106 393 72 111 23 2 22 64 59 86 7 0 .282 .375 .519 .894

Manny:
G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO SB CS AVG OBP SLG OPS
100 365 66 109 22 1 20 68 52 86 1 0 .299 .398 .529 .926

Appearantly we believe in throwing money away here…

Seriously now, it seems like a monday trend so far.  This weekend Patrick and I recieved the electricity bill for the month of july.  Now a little history, thinking that we conserved energy, we were eager to open up our first electricity bill last month.  Expecting to open it up and see a piece of paper with a big smiley face on it saying “hey because you guys are so cool, how about we take care of this one for you”, we were laughing and giving eachother a thumbs up and smiling like a scene from a queer early 90’s sitcom (were we?, i’ll leave it up to you to decide).

Lets see, where is the….. oh, my, god …. 180 bucks?!

Yup, thats right, 180 dollars which equated to about 960kWh used in one month.  Now, for those of you who arent aware with average kWh usage…lets just say the average family uses about 600-700kWh a month.  Thats right, appearantly we are running a small concentration camp here at the Hartford 21 (my gf is jewish, so that comment is allowed).  Now, we split bills so thats about 90 dollars each, which when you look at it from that perspective, isn’t a lot of money compared to the other bills…but still…what the hell are we doing

Lets limit the usage of the dryer and the dishwasher

So for the month of July we decided to be more cautious, assuming that it was our frequent use of the dryer and dishwasher that was ranking up money.  I mean hey, its not like we were doing laundry and dishes everyday, but who knows.  So off we go through another month of trying to save some money.

Now the funny thing is, we really dont pay much here at the H21.  Our water bill is only about 5-10 dollars a month, mainly because hot water is covered.  We dont pay for AC technically, because its a force air system which means that the coolant runs through the pipes behind the walls in our apartment, however, the fans that force the cold air into the rooms utilize electricity.  But hey, I put my math genious to use and found that these fans are 1 amp fans that run at 115V….so, using cute little Ohm’s law we can assume W=VA (some people call it the w. virginia rule…wierdos), meaning we are using 115w with the fan on….congrats you’re an engineer.  Now 115w … ok ok so thats like having a few lights on….

So this weekend we were graced with the new bill.  Pat wasn’t around so I decided to satisfy myself with the joy of opening the fun loving envelope.

Son of a bitch, are you kidding me?!

One-hundred and eighty-five dollars ($185 for the blind-deaf-mutes…..wait a minute…)!??!  I was ready to boot open the door to the electric room here and check to see if our meter was connected to the local bars…because honestly, 978kWh this month?  Ok so time to re-evaluate….we relaxed on the dishwasher….on teh dryer….so what, are we going to have to eat sparingly, take showers together, and sleep in the same bed (what, im sure that saves some electricity)?

Wait a minute…….there are 4 AC units in the apartment…hrmm…..the 2 in the living room are on setting 3 24hours a day…..so wait….thats 115w x 2 … 230w …. plus the one in my room that is usually blasting on 2 or 3….so lets just add another 115w for good judgement….and another 115w for pats room…..so thats 460w running 24/7….meaning thats about 12kWh per day just from the AC…holy crap….weeeee are stupid.

Needless to say, we found our source of massive electricity usage.  So, we have shut off both AC units in the living room…and left our room AC’s on setting 1 last nite.  It’s actually very comfy in the apartment….hopefully it stays this way, and hopefully we wont have to live in darkness, naked, and hungry to save some money (my guess is as good as yours as to how nakedness would help).

Summer Goal, Fat Burning

Summers are basically my time to shine in the cardio world.  After spending most of the year trying to bulk up and gain muscle, it is a goal of mine to try and go a few months of trying to cut back some fat.  So far this summer I have been steadily made progress towards my goals, and I know that some of you are hoping to do the same.  With cardio excersizes at our disposal, we all look for additional ways to try to get that extra fat off, but what exactly, and how exactly can we help do that?

The Most Important

Of course the most important way is not from a supplement.  After testing various ways to try and boost my metabolism and cut some fat, I have finally found one method that has worked great for me, as well as others.  High Intensity Interval Training (or HIIT) is a great way to fire up your metabolism, shock your body, and make you sweat.  It’s great for those of us that dont really have the time to spend running for a couple of hours, but still would like the same results.  HIIT can be done in many ways, but the most common form is running (and on the treadmill).  Basically we start with a nice long stretch to get our muscles warm and ready for the workout, this is important because with the intense training we are about to go through, we dont want to get hurt!  Next, we follow this simple pattern, a 30 second walk, and then a full 30 second sprint (for those on treadmills, I usually go from a 3mph walk, to a 10.5mph sprint).  Doing this for 9 total minutes (so thats 9 walks and 9 sprints) for our first session, you should be ending both tired, and sweating like crazy.  Continue this process every other day, and tack on an extra minute after every 3rd session, peaking at a total of 14 total minutes, and you will see your goals being achieved in no time.

How does it work? By walking, then pushing a hard sprint (at a pulse of about 160bpm), we are shocking our body, and studies have shown that this process actually burns more fat than traditional running.  I wont go into all teh gory details of who did the research, when and how, but type in HIIT in google and you will be filled with info in no time.

H – Two – Ohhhhhh

Our bodies are constantly filled with water…actually, our bodies are mostly water. Water has many great benefits to our body, that EVERYONE needs, especially those of us looking to pack on some lean mass, or even loose some weight.

Wanna loose fat?? Without enough water, the kidneys can’t function properly. When this happens, some of the load is transferred to the liver. The liver metabolizes stored fat for energy. If the liver is doing some of the kidneys’ work, it burns less fat, so drink up!

Some are afraid to drink a lot of water because they are afraid to ‘retain water’. However, contrary to popular belief drinking water can actually help you shed excess water weight. When water is in short supply, the body, thinking there’s a shortage, begins storing it away for later use. This water is stored in extra cellular spaces. In other words, your skin starts looking soft and puffy.

Diet

Of course you dont need me to tell you another important thing is dieting, but with all of the diets out there, which is the best??  To be honest, its hard to tell because every body is different.  Some of us benefit from high fat, low carb diets, while some of us benefit from high protein, low fat diets.  Its crazy, from my experience, to think that one diet will work for everyone.  I have tried various different methods, and the one that has worked for me is staying with a high intake of protein, which I do anyway for retention of muscle mass, and keeping my carb intake low (no pasta, only multigrain bread).  My suggestion is to go a few months on one type of diet, and my suggestion is to try the low-carb diet first.  Eating 5 small meals a day will help kickstart that metabolism, and staying with a low calorie intake (about 2000 calories a day for normal healthy adults as advised by the fda) should take care of your dieting needs.

The most productive exercises are simple and compound

…Ah yes, the famous quote by IFBB Pro Markus Ruhl.  Summer time to most is a time to take vacations, relax, party, and take nights on the town, but to me, Summer is the important time of the year, where I strive to become more fit and start loosing weight that i purposely gained througout the year.  Now I understand some of you are re-reading that last line and wondering if I meant to write it, or if im just plain stupid.  I can assure you I meant to write it, and can contest with most that I am clearly not stupid.

A behavioural pattern characterized by compulsion, loss of control, and continued repetition of a behaviour or activity spite of adverse consequenses

It’s funny; you search the internet for a definition of addiction, and about 90 percent of the results have to do with drugs, alcohol, and negative uncontrollable behavior.  However, in my case, my addiction drives towards the composition of my body.

Being overweight in my adolescence, I was in desperate need of a change in my life, a need to start hacking away at the ice that had formed around my confidence.  I was active in martial arts, but it never was enough, as my habits prevented me from looking more like an athlete, and less like a tire.  Eventually I was turned on to bodybuilding by one of my friends, as well as one of my martial arts instructors, both of whom were deeply in love with the sport, and devote most of their life to it.  Eventually my cashflow started flowing out of my savings, and into weight lifting equipment….the journey began!

Strutting around my basement with short shorts and a colored beater was probably not the most flattering of sights, but hey I figure that eventually I would fill out just right, and when I looked down, I would see less belly, and more feet.  In an effort to not die my first time handling weights, I started doing whatever I remember seeing people in the movies do, of course that ment start bench pressing 100 times and doing curls, nothing more.  It wasn’t until the next morning, when i couldn’t itch my own butt when I realized that I should probably look more into what I was trying to do, and start doing it the right way.

What the heck, I just worked out yesterday, but I still look the same

Of course my ignorance had this glorified idea that I would wake up the next day a changed man, but after staring at my shirtless self in front of a mirror at various different angles I realized that i still was carrying around my duffle bag belly and cone shaped chest.  It is safe to say eventually I started doing more reading and research to find my way to bettering my life.  Eventually I lost weight, and started packing on some mass, and in turn, was gaining some more confidence.  It has been great, and has even given me the opportunity to get my friends involved, and for me to be able to train them in achieving the same goals that I have.

So what is the goal of this blog?  Fitness isn’t easy, and its always great to get some feedback on others on how they achieved their goals and how they plan to continue.  As I continue my journey, I want to share some feedback with you, and answer questions you may have, so stay tuned for some reviews on supplements, and a journal of my workouts!

Bubble Wrapped For Safety

Ok, so waking up today, I was scared of rolling out of bed…hey, with the way things have been going I would expect a down syndrome bear to jump up from underneath my bed and shoe me in the tushy.  But low and behold, I made it out of bed safely, showered, and didn’t even drop the soap….so far so good.

Off to making some breakfast!  Thinking twice about weather I should break out the fire extinguisher prior to toasting some bread, I figured “hey, ill press my luck today”, turned the toaster on, and walked away, checking behind me a couple times to ensure that things were going as planned.  Its crazy, how your whole outlook on the day changes when things start going wrong.

Did I do something wrong?  *Checks for a mishapen halo on head*

All in all today went pretty well, nothing out of the ordinary.  My collegues at work joked around, wondering if a “third” incident had occurred.  Luckily, my car was safe and sound this time around; Then again, it could be because I was driving like a granny, both hands on the wheel, staring at the road in front of me, checking for nails.

Hey now you dont have to be cautious, you have a warranty on the new tires

…Reassures one of the people I work with, as if I spent 800 dollars so that I could wake up the next day, drive like a one legged ape, and walk away thinking “oh good, if i kill a small child, at least my tires are covered”.  But hey, we have to have a positive outlook, and you figure that things can only get better after this *knocks on wood, really hard*.  Tomorrow I have my meeting that I had to reschedule.  Hopefully all will go well and things should start smooth sailing; same procedure, the CSC office until 1, then over to Pratt.

It was wierd, sitting at work today.  During some downtime you cant help but to evaluate the things that have been going on.  My dad actually called me a few times, making sure that all is well.  Makes you realize how important your family is, and that when you are away from them how much you miss them.  It would have probably been a different feeling, if instead of being at work, I got the flat tire outside of my house, being able to run inside, and be consoled by my parents.  But standing in a parking lot, realizing that there is no “mom and dad” to walk home to.  Granted they are a phone call away, but I think that makes it worse, hearing them try to console you over the phone, realizing that you are separated.  My dad keeps offering to pay for my tires, but I am not going to let him, they have helped me so much throughout the years, its time for me to take responsibility and handle situations as they come to me.  Maybe thats more of the “macho” mentality, but I guess thats another chapter in the book of “growing older”.

One of my favorite quotes of all time, from the wise Bruce Lee:

Empty your mind, be formless. Shapeless, like water. If you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle and it becomes the bottle. You put it in a teapot it becomes the teapot. Now, water can flow or it can crash. Be water my friend.

Until tomorrow….

Wizzzzzz……

Yup, thats the sound of me just pissing money away.  Of course, you would think that after a near violent encounter last nite things would start going on the up and up, NOPE!  Today, and of course its the beginning of the week, I had a meeting scheduled for 1pm.  Things were going good, I was on my way to getting some work done, and then working up some excitement to head to this meeting, and to see my desk over at my new office.  So i grab all my crapo-la, and head out the door.

Now here is the situation, currently at the CSC building, parking is only assigned to associates that do most of their work there, but in my case, I will be actually working over at Pratt and Whitney, so, because things never really go your way, I am plagued by having to park down the street, and walking about 3-5 minutes in nice hot temperatures to the front door of the office.  So, on my way I go towards my parking spot, at 1pm, in 100 degree weather

Its so damn hot, I cant wait to get in the car, run the AC and drive to Pratt

Dont worry, I am not going to tell you my car was stolen (of course I wouldn’t put it past myself), but, at first glance, everything was fine and dandy.  I get in the car, turn it on, and immediatly get out because of how hot it was on the inside.  The AC blasting did justice after a while, and expelled all the hot air, so finally, i was all nice and snug in the car, getting an ice cold blast of air into my face.

BROOM BRROOMMMM, plop plop plop plop HARDSTEERTOTHERIGHT

Oh boy, this chain of events was all too familiar, even though my last encounter was back in 2004….I had a flat tire.  Grrrreeaaaaaattttt.  I start poking at the tire, thinking some ignorant asshold could possibly have just let the air out, which cmon, I’m in hartford, it could happen.  But nope, to my demise, i find a cute, shiny screw, flush against the tire.  Now at first, you are filled with rage that you dont really know who to get mad at.  So i stand up, flip off the tire, flip off the car, and then flip off the road….im sure one of those is at fault.

So of course, time to walk back from the parking lot, call the person I was meeting with, and cancel.  Luckily the GF wasn’t working at the time, so she gladly came to pick me up, and off I went back down the street to change my tire.  I have AAA, but lets face it, they would have taken about an hour to get there, made me stand there while they put on a spare, and then drove away, been there, done that, no thanks.  So I start jacking up the car

You son of a ***** I hate you you piece of ***** You’re lucky i dont $@#(&*$@&(@

Swearing because the rim seemed to be glued on the damn axel, I stood up, gave it a nice hard boot, and off it fell.  On goes that stupid looking donut, with markings printed all over it “DO NOT DRIVE FASTER THAN 40 MPH”.  It looks as if my car was plagued with cancer, 3 normal wheels and one shriveled up piece of garbage.

Eventually, I had to pay a cute sum of $802.00.  Ah yes, not only did I have to change 1 tire, but all 4.  Why?  Because these days, even when you take great care of your car, there are still some things that come jack you in the ass.  Turns out that the tires were wearing out their age (mind you the car is 6 yrs old, with only 23k miles on it, do the math, thats only about 4k miles a year, some people rank up 15k miles a year on average).

So yea, $802 out the window it goes, if anyone is around, and grabs some of it, please, feel free to walk it down to the bowels of hell where I will be sitting and waiting.

And It All Falls Down!

Ok, so in one hour my whole life just turned upside down, then rightside up as if someone was shaking the earth from a little space age snow globe.  Ok ok, so maybe thats just a tad dramatic, but seriously.  At around 10pm, I come in my room and realize that my screen is black.

Click…….Click…….CLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKDAMNITCLICK

…Awesome, my computer is frozen.  So, like any other computer literate human being, I go ahead and shut down the computer (couldn’t decide whether to do so polietly with the power button, angrily by pulling it out of the socket, or remorsefully by giving it a good jab…..i took the polite rout this time).  Pressing the power button again, I was looking forward to writing blog number 2 while sipping a cup of coffee, what has now become a nightly routine.  So I sit, and wait,….and wait…..and wait…..”oh awesome, im staring at a blank screen”

Blah, luckily I have enough computer knowledge to get this back up and running (thank god for Windows System Restore), but to do so, I need my handy dandy………thumbdrive!  So I go to its usual spot, on my bookshelf, but (of course) its not there.  So I start digging, and digging, and searching…and after about 30 minutes, I was ready to pull out the shotgun (the one in my head, pew pew).  Of course, my thesis, and all of my grad work is sitting on that wonderful, easily misplaced item.  So now I start pacing the room, looking at every place I could possibly think of (except the toilet tank, that would be a funny place for it to be).

Well, I might as well call Hill and say “hey so is there any way for me to still get my masters?”

Of course I would find it an hour later, in the most random damn spot on earth (in a gym bag at the top of my closet).  Seriously, if I could go back in time and watch myself put it in that bag, I would slam myself in the chest with a rubber mallet (bet that would teach me).

Luckily, after having thoughts of self mutilation due to my own stupidity (that would be fun to explain to people), I managed to get the PC back up and running.

Moral of this story?  If you have an important thumb drive, especially with something that would make or break your graduation, hang it on the wall and have a string run from it to a cleverly designed knife catapult.  That would sure make you think twice about placing it in a stupid place.

New Blog, New Beginning

Well,  I have been really wanting to do some blogging recently, but have never had the will to sign into my myspace account, blog, and then add it to my page.  After reading some reviews, I cam across this domain.  Looks pretty cool, lots of neat stuff to do.  I hope all of my readers from my myspace blogs follow me, should be a fun adventure.  Either way, we will see how it goes.

In general, things are going pretty good!  I graduated from Hartford, still need to defend my thesis, but once I do that, that wonderful ticket to free-from-school-freedom should be in my hands (aka my Masters Degree).  All in all, the road to the “real world” has been filled with not only fun, but learning.

I recently got a job at the Computer Sciences Corporation here in East Hartford.  Its a giant company with offices in basically every state.  Their main common use is outsourced IT for big companies, but I am on the higher end, the engineering/application development side.  Its been a lot of fun so far; I am basically doing what I love, and loving what I do (as if i couldn’t get any corny-er).  Pulling the 9-5 every day is a bit rough, but I am getting used to it.

Wisely and slow; they stumble that run fast

I live in Hartford now, actually, right in downtown.  Patrick, one of my college buddies, and I decided to live in style over at the Hartford21.  Rent is decent, the ameneties are spectacular.  Oh what fun all the bills are, but hey, I guess thats part of living, and something I will have to get used to very fast.  But hey, its great having income (money baby!).

I know I dont have you on the edge of your seats yet, but I am just breaking mine in before story time really kicks into gear.  Stay tuned.