Quit buying stuff made in China!
For crying out loud people, quit buying stuff made in China. I mean fuck. Fuck fuck fuck.
Every fucking thing I pick up at every store says “Made in China” on the fucking tag. Fuck I couldn’t even buy toothpicks that were NOT made in China here locally in Ohio. What the fuck? This is pissing me off to no end. And why is it happening? Because we let China export a shitload of stuff into our Country while the USA doesn’t export shit back. I’ll pay an extra $5 or $10 for an American made toy for my kid. I’m tired of my wife bringing home a toy for our kid only to have it break the first day. I then look and see “Made in China” and have to glue it back together. I’m about ready to put all the broken shit in a pile and ship it back to China. What a bunch of bullshit.
On top of that how about how China treats animals? Just search YouTube for China Animal Cruelty and you’ll see what I mean. It’s total bullshit. People in China have no moral or ethical values it seems. They see people as a fucking thing, like a plate or a bowl or a car bumper.
Fuck am I pissed about this shit.
Add comment July 6, 2009
Working out with a heavy bag in my basement
Well over the weekend I purchased an Everlast 100 lb. heavy bag. I mounted it on a 3/4″ black steel pipe I put up between two floor joists. The pipe is secured by 4 pieces of 3/4″ plywood sandwiched together (two on each side). The plywood has holes drilled in it and then the piece of pipe and the thick pieces of plywood were pushed up in between the joists and then anchored with 2.5″ wood lag screws (6 per side). I actually held myself up on the pipe afterwords and I weigh in at 250 lbs and am 6′ 1″ tall. It holds real nice.
Anyway…I watched a few videos on Youtube, and learned how to properly wrap my hands before taking to the bag. You have to be careful what you watch on YouTube as there were a couple videos from “expertvillage” that were very very wrong ways to wrap your knuckles and wrist before you start pounding the bag.
I pounded the bag today for three (3 minute) rounds. Giving about a 1 minute break in between. My fists are a little sore, and so are my arms and calves. It was well worth it however. This is going to be my preferred way of cardio workout but I’m going to start revving up the pounding each time I train.
I don’t have any kind of formal training but I like to think I’m about average at hitting the bag. Right now I’m not working on power punching as much as getting the technique down well and trying to hit the bag square as to not twist or bend my wrist. Don’t want a boxers fracture (already had one), nor to I want a sprained or broken wrist.
I gotta tell ya, I can’t say enough good things about the Everlast bag. It’s a champ. I’m glad I got the 100 lb. bag too instead of a 70 or 80 pounder. At 6′ 1″ tall and 250 lbs. I think I would be swinging the lighter bags around all over the place.
I got the heavy bag on sale at Dick’s Sporting Goods (a local store). I walked in and found the bag I wanted and bought it on the spot. It was on sale from $130 down to $99. Also bought a pair of Mexican style 180″ hand wraps. I can tell you that if I didn’t have the wraps on my hands would probably be pretty tore up right now. They gave me the little extra padding I needed to not have ripped up knuckles etc.
Really looking forward to my next session. Love it.
Add comment June 14, 2009
In Chicago
Well I’m in Chicago with my wife and I gotta say that I love the city. It’s pretty busy. So much so that I don’t think that I would want to go to New York City. Chicago is just about perfect. Not too busy but not too boring either. It seems like NYC would be fucking hectic all the time. I however have never been to NYC so this is just a guess.
I love the John Hancock building. It’s just beautiful. I’ve not even been in it yet but I can see it from my hotel room. We’ll head up and eat at the top later today most likely. I love the white lights at the top at night.
I’m sitting in the hotel right now in a “window seat”. It’s a seat beside the window that’s really long enough and wide enough to sleep on. Since I’m on the 10th floor I can see the stuff going on below and it’s really cool. I look out the window and see the John Hancock building and it’s a marvel of engineering. Wow.
It’s about 73 degrees here today and overcast. Looks like it’s gonna rain. I can see the lake and it doesn’t look like it has many waves. I’m used to Lake Erie which gets really big waves due to it’s shallow nature.
The old Water Tower and the old #98 Fire Station are really cool. Old school at it’s best.
Giordano’s Pizza is what we had for dinner last night. It was the best pizza I have ever had. I love it. I wish I could take a whole bunch home.
I’m happy I’m here in Chicago.
4 comments April 25, 2009
Anxiety and weird feeling on the front of my neck
So over the past 3 to 5 days I’ve been having this weird feeling at the base of the front of my neck. It’s not so much pain as it is annoying. It’s really hard to describe. It’s almost as if someone is holding their hands around my neck yet doing it lightly. I can breath fine and I don’t have any shortness of breath. I have had anxiety and “worry” issues for years now. I take Zoloft regularly and I take Xanax on an “as needed” basis.
I’m the type of person that gets all worked up about something like this and thinks “oh no, there must be something wrong with my heart or maybe my carotid arteries are clogged or something. I tend to go a bit overboard with trying to “self diagnose”. The Internet is not a help these days it just makes it worse it seems.
I try to get a good cardio workout in at least 3 times a week where I walk fast on the treadmill and get my heart rate up to about 155bpm and keep it there for about 30 or 40 minutes. I did this on Monday and my neck/upper chest felt funny the entire time. No different than when I am not exercising.
In the past I have had blood work done, a stress test, Holter monitor etc, just because I’m anal about shit and want to make sure I’m “OK”. I had all this done about 3 years ago. The docs all said everything was just fine.
Right now I am 6′1″ tall and I weigh 280 lbs. I used to weigh 314 lbs. but I lost the weight and still need to lose more. I don’t smoke, I drink occasionally but usually it’s about 2-3 beers a week at most. If not beer it’s Chianti (wine).
If I am standing up and I bend forward 90 degrees like I am half way to touching my toes, I can feel the weird feeling in my neck get worse. It’s almost like pressure. If I didn’t know any better I would say that I had pressure on my carotid arteries or something. The feeling has been with me constantly today. Not pain…..just annoying kind of weird pressure. It feels kind of similar to feelings I have had in the past when I have had anxiety real bad or some sort of anxiety attack. However if I take Xanax usually I’m fine after a short while. In this case I take Xanax and it helps a bit but the feeling doesn’t go completely away.
I have no idea what it is. I did talk to my doctor today on the phone and she said that this could be anxiety induced and that if I’m not better by next week she would like to see me.
I really just wanted to share this in case anyone else has had something like this and knows what this is. I also figured this may help someone who is having the same feelings.
3 comments April 2, 2009
Asshole truck drivers
First let me start off by saying that not ALL truck drivers are assholes. Just like not all people driving four wheelers (cars) are assholes.
So, tonight on my way home from work I’m rolling 70 MPH on cruise control in the center lane of the turnpike. When this asshole rig gets up on my rear bumper. And I usually don’t care because they do that sometimes. However this guy was super close and was doing it on purpose. He wasn’t like a car length off my bumper, not 6 feet, but about 14 inches. Asshole. I saw this same guy doing this to other cars in the right lane about 3 miles back.
Here’s the problem. Now that the speed limit for rigs is up to 65 in Ohio just like the cars, they wanna roll hard all the time. So if I’m in the right lane they always go around me (mind you even if I’m doing 70 on cruise). I try to run the center lane that way the rigs can roll past me in the right lane if they want. If there is some slow poke fucker in the right lane (car) I can’t help it and I’m certainly not going to be switching lanes all the time if the rigs want to go 80 in a 65. Fuck ‘em.
I never had this problem when the speed limit for rigs was 55. I would roll the center lane and they would roll the right lane and only come into center to pass here and there. Now at least 50% or more of the rigs are always climbing peoples asses and getting really close and using the jake brake (engine brake) etc. This guy was swerving all around and just being a jerk. It’s not like I was trying to do a damn thing to him. He was carring all kinds of steel pipe on a flatbed and driving like he had no load. What a moron.
I understand that there are a good amount of people driving cars that cause a boatload of accidents for truckers. I know this and I can’t stand those people either. It just really burns me up when truck drivers do this shit. I mean fuck…..calm down a bit, slow down and chill out.
Usually I do my part to let rigs over when needed and I am always looking way up ahead to see if I see one entering the turnpike from a rest area or something and I get over to let the rigs in the right lane move into the center to let the other rig on. We all need to help out, that’s a given.
What doesn’t help is when you get these jackass truck drivers who feel the need to drive 90 just so they can get up the next hill so they treat all the car drivers like dirt. It just makes me want to not give a crap anymore about the truckers. And bitterness and asshole driving will just breed more of the same thing.
Man….people need to take fucking chill pills and slow down a little. I’m not talking drive like a grandma in the right lane doing 55, but fuck. You know what I mean, and you know who you are.
4 comments February 10, 2009
What happened to white wall tires?
Yeah, what happened to white wall tires? I know they have been not on cars for the most part for a long time. I however saw a nice Buick with white walls and then started looking at all the other cars. Just booring black wall tires. No raised white letters (RWL) or white walls. Just booring black wall tires.
Now I understand that some of the tires these days are 50 series or smaller and that doesn’t leave a whole lot of room for the white wall to fit.
I think white wall tires look elegant on some cars (think Buick Lucerne here) but look like crap on others.
Heck why doesn’t anyone put raised white letter tires on their cars? They look neat with the letters spinning around as you’re driving.
Who knows, maybe I’m showing my age, but I still think that we should have white wall tires, and raised white letter tires as OEM on certain factory cars.
My $.02
1 comment February 3, 2009