Stuffed Superdud: Bumpy road to respectable lifting

[George Christiansen]

Yeah. the attitude of the locals is why I never joined a gym. I'd rather spend the rest of my life limited to 16kg kettlebells and a chin up bar I had there than deal with those jack-asses.

The women certainly spend a lot of money on trying to look beautiful. I would regularly run into younger girls (teenagers and 20 somethings) that would want to do a little slumming with me. They assume that because I am American, I'm rich too, and because I'm tall that i'm hung like a........well hung like I am, but it's still rude of them.

They get their money from what amounts to a welfare check from the nations oil income. My wife made about half of what each of them get for being local. That society is the perfect example of why even if you gave most Americans on welfare more money they'd still be sitting at home watching Jerry Springer. Maybe 10% of them use the opportunity to get an education or even attempt to work at a job. The government has tried to force them to work and force the expats to hire them, but the expats just give them their salary and let them drink tea all day because they are generally doing less damage doing nothing then when they actually try to get involved.

The older generation is different and many of them have even refused the money. Most of them do truly work and have ambition, but the whole culture is anti-correction, so the current generation is spoiled and arrogant. Your happiness there is directly correlated to the % of time spent interacting with the locals. Even with making up only 20% of the population, they drive about 50% of the expats out in the 1st 6 months. We showed up in August to double the salary and free housing with a group of about 800 teachers. 400 were gone by October.

The rest of us were slow learners.

[Dildo Bolt]

There was one kid in my high school from Dubai... He would conspicuously buy hundreds of dollar worth of useless online merchandise during lunch period. Later that year he posted a video of himself shooting shit in his backyard with a fully auto AK. Some time after that he got into a drag racing accident on the highway and messed up his face and first beemer pretty good.... Oh and actually I lied. There must have been two. He had a friend from Dubai also. They wore electronically heated jackets in the winter.

[George Christiansen]

They wore electronically heated jackets in the winter.

My son was actually born there. Sadly, no oil checks or Ferrari for him, but he is the biggest wuss I know when it comes to the cold.

[stuffedsuperdud]

Good news first: Better Call Saul just wrapped up one hell of a great 1st season. It's not purely the dark comedy I expected: though there are plenty black chuckles, most of the events are some seriously dramatic moments depicting man's struggle against the uncaring gods, and Bob Odenkirk and Jonathan Banks are delivering the performances of their lives every single week.

Ugh anyone ready for a bad day? My right wrist (historically the bothersome one, with limited extension for as long as I can remember) was feeling very tight tonight and I couldn't front rack the bar properly. I ended up doing

Jerk:
40kgx3
60x3x2
70x3x2
80x3x2
60x2
and having to call it there. Coach had been hoping for 100+. Nooope.

Power clean + push press 1+1
60x3x2
70x3
Coach saw that I was in pain and cut it off here.

I don't think it was just the wrist, either. There's migratory pain up and down the entire forearm, including the elbow. Maybe I slept on it wrong or something, iono. Lame.

Redemption, sort of:
Squat:
70kgx5
110x5
140x3
150x6

At least my knee doesn't hurt today, even when everything else does. Is this some sort of irony? It was supposed to be 150x3x2, but I wanted to punish myself for being such a piece of shit, so I did all 6 reps in one shot. Was disappointingly easy. Can't even get self-flagellation right? FML.

Kettlebell press: 35lbx10x2
Biceps curlz lolwut: 35lbx10 to see if it helps the elbow.

Factors that didn't help:
1. Was starving at the gym. I've been hungry A LOT lately. Hopefully it's my raging *snicker* anabolic state, and not some weird hormonal problem that causes me to balloon up to 300lbs. With my luck, probably the latter, along with the beetus.

2. Work has been stressful. Monster deadlines coming up + I have no choice but to collaborate with that idiot Alireza guy. Aside from his issues with the obesity and with women, he's definitely booksmart, but everythingelsedumb. That's okay in itself: R&D is hard and we all feel stupid most days because shit that should work won't, but he's incredibly arrogant on top of all else to the point where asking him for a favor means formally approaching him and and politely making the request, in writing if possible. He also once insisted that I bring a third person in first, to witness the deed. Today I told him to be more careful after he broke a beaker full of etchant and he went, "Okay if I am not careful enough maybe you should find someone else to do this with you." And then he sulked on his phone for a while watching Top Gear clips on YouTube. Really? That's okay? So he's got the world's worse case of Dunning-Kreuger and arrogant-bastarditis on top of all else. Great. Last week, I told some other folks I was working with him; now I know why people were giggling.

Cherry on top:
From Cancergirl, as I was lugging a pile of her crap up some stairs to her apartment: "Hrm you have a pretty sweet ass but it might look nicer if your thighs weren't so big to match." Just can't win.

/1stWorldProblems

[George Christiansen]

Aside from his issues with the obesity and with women, he's definitely booksmart, but everythingelsedumb. That's okay in itself: R&D is hard and we all feel stupid most days because shit that should work won't, but he's incredibly arrogant on top of all else to the point where asking him for a favor means formally approaching him and and politely making the request, in writing if possible. He also once insisted that I bring a third person in first, to witness the deed. Today I told him to be more careful after he broke a beaker full of etchant and he went, "Okay if I am not careful enough maybe you should find someone else to do this with you." And then he sulked on his phone for a while watching Top Gear clips on YouTube. Really? That's okay? So he's got the world's worse case of Dunning-Kreuger and arrogant-bastarditis on top of all else. Great. Last week, I told some other folks I was working with him; now I know why people were giggling.

That is pretty common in his culture.

Trying to critique someone is a minefield and I swear that people there would rather be punched in the face than insulted. Even the smallest accomplishment gets the response of a child's first steps.

[stuffedsuperdud]

Heh, man you must have had a terrible time there.... I'm actually planning a trip there for later this year, if I can secure the vacation days. Guess I might see this for myself? Mostly I just want to go that gargantuan shopping mall with the indoor taxi services; that sounds downright surreal.

So something funny happened today. Coach went with the Pan-Am champ to handle her at a local meet; IIRC the goal was to get some qualifying total and maybe set a for-fun PR, with the "real" PRs to come at Masters Worlds. Weird that a local meet would go down on a Thursday, right? That's just the start of the troubles. So they both took the day off to brave LA traffic this morning.....and found that somehow, there was some sort of mix-up / scheduling change, and she missed her session. WTF. He was MIA all afternoon except for a few text messages telling us he won't be in until tomorrow, so we're going on the assumption that he assaulted a few USAW officials with an empty barbell and is spending the night in lockup.

In lieu of proper training then, I did:

OHS:
40kgx3
50x3
60x3
70x3

Snatch push press:
80x3
90x3
95x2 PR
I probably had a 3rd rep in the tank but pussied out.

More exciting training to come tomorrow.

Less awesome news: The Russian wraps are not particularly durable. Little elastic fibers are tearing and sticking out here and there, and the velcro is detaching. They ARE a lifesaver though, so.......might be time to order backup pairs??? Iono. Come on Klokov, they have your name and picture on them; I expect better than B+ material from what is ostensibly an A+ man.

[George Christiansen]

Heh, man you must have had a terrible time there.... I'm actually planning a trip there for later this year, if I can secure the vacation days. Guess I might see this for myself? Mostly I just want to go that gargantuan shopping mall with the indoor taxi services; that sounds downright surreal.

We had a good time there most of the time, but lie I said, it is mostly dependent upon how much interaction with Gen Y locals you have. Dubai is better than Abu Dhabi for most things. Definitely for malls. Surreal is a good description of things there.

[CJ Gotcher]

We had a good time there most of the time, but lie I said, it is mostly dependent upon how much interaction with Gen Y locals you have. Dubai is better than Abu Dhabi for most things. Definitely for malls. Surreal is a good description of things there.

I remember going to "Wild Wadi's Water Park" and standing in line between 2 local women, one in a swim burka, the other in a bikini covered almost head to toe with tattoos. All with the ever-present Burj in the background. Later that day, we hit the indoor ski slope. 'Surreal' hits it right on the head.

[stuffedsuperdud]

Sold. Time to see if maybe I can get a deal on some sort of Gulf States Grand Tour to include Qatar, Oman, and Kuwait. They're starting to show up here for summer, btw: I was at an In-N-Out drive-thru behind a bright orange Mercedes AMG, with its engine stats painted on the sides. License plate: DUBAI 19.

Cancergirl, hangry in the passenger seat: "Well fuck me. The worst part is, I'm sure now that somewhere out there are DUBAI's 1-18. And original DUBAI. So 20 douchebags running loose." I am not 100% sure, but from the way she describes her gigantic family tree and all the comings and goings the businessmen did, there's a chance she might actually be a tiny part Emirati herself. That'd be hiliarous, eh? It'd be pre-oil though, so no $$$ connections there, too bad.

Of course it took forever because there were six of them in the car and they were each giddily ordering about $30 worth of burgers, fries, and shakes. Hearts and minds, people. God damn I love the smell of deep fried Freedom™ when I have the munchies at 11PM on Saturday. Murricah!

Note: I missed training on Friday because in typical Cool Girl capital C capital G fashion, CG impulsively wanted to fire up the grill, so we had to round up some people and then go get some steaks, burgers, and sausages........and an obscene amount of bourbon. Good times were had by all.

Today:
8 mile hike in Laguna Beach. We took one of the more strenuous paths: not particularly long, but LOTS of hills, all of which I was able to run up with surprising ease, even beating the actual marathon runner with us on some of them as he started gassing. Guess the recomp and improvements in conditioning are starting to show themselves a bit?! Will take it.

CG seems to be toughening up too: a few weeks ago just walking more than half a mile was stressful but today she ground out the whole thing no problem.

Fun aside: Remember how CG ran out of water last week? Today I went to pick her up and she comes out with a giant milspec CamelBak with 3L olive drab bladder, insulated tube, extra strong bite valve, the works, and geeked out on the drive there reading all the features to me.

"Hey what's this velcro thing I have here?"
"Oh, I think that's where you put your name tape."
"My what?"
"Like on your helmet and your body armor and your shirt."
"Oh.......cool!"
So now she's trying to have one made down at the Marine Corps Exchange in Camp Pendleton.

Now: It's finally back!


(Yes, I know the first four episodes of this season leaked. No, I'm not going to look for them. This is way more fun.)

[George Christiansen]

I spent a week in Oman while we were over there. Very different people. Friendly. There was actually some mountains and green there too.