No more Bad Grandpa

My attack on unwanted poundage isn't going quite as swimmingly as I'd hoped.  Last week, Pyscho Mom was out of town so I was pulling double duty on the parenting front.  I weathered that storm, but my forward march was slightly stalled.

This week, I'm back, but only slightly with a vengeance.  Because I'm really fat and even more out of shape, I've been walking to get my body used to the beating its in for.  Walking is so lame though, that I feel like I'm not doing anything.  Even after a couple miles, my feet are hot and my legs tired, but I'm barely sweating.

Today was the day to sew up the vag and start getting air born.  I was ready to break out of Bad Grandpa mode and start pushing the treadmill to spin a little faster.  A look on the scale was all the motivation I needed.  Somehow, I'm up 1.4 pounds this week.

I walked for a couple minutes to get my parts warm.  Then, I went air born.  Cranked that dreamill up to a sizzling 5.2 MPH and started to jog.  Yeah, 5.2 is pretty puss but it's a start.  I knew my lungs would be the first casualty of the day so I figured a combination of walking and jogging would make for a good routine where I could spend a decent amount of time in motion and burn some calories.

Amazingly, my lungs were hanging in there.  Instead, it was my knees that waved the white flag.  Initially, some sort of shin splinty kind of thing started acting up on the left leg, but that pain was soon overpowered by the fire in my right knee.  Sadly, my right knee is the good knee, a virgin of scalpels and big needles.  The left knee is a bit of a mess.  It's got three little marks where the scope went in some years ago and it's been drained more times than I can remember.  According to the doctor, 'it's fine,' but I know better.  It's still my bum knee, but now it seems it's the better of the two.

While the left knee was making a noble effort at accepting this new chore of running, the right knee grimaced and whined and cried the whole time.  After a combination of walking and jogging produced an embarrassing 13:44 mile, I called it a day and headed to the debriefing room to discuss the issue with the knees.

Me:  Knees, what's the problem?

Knees:  The problem?  Have you looked in the mirror?  That's the problem.

Me:  Sure, I'm carrying a couple extra pounds, but that's no excuse.

Knees:  A couple extra?  Try a dozen.  

Me:  Ok, a dozen. But we've done this before, why suddenly is there a problem?

Knees:  Dude, we're old.  We're older than we've ever been.  We're just about as fat as we've ever been.  And that shit you feed us isn't exactly Jenny Jones approved.

Me:  Come on, grow a pair.  I have a beer a night on the weekend.

Knees:  Yes, one beer in a 22-ounce bottle.

Me:  So!  It's not that unusual.

Knees:  The one beer in the 22-ounce bottle isn't the problem.  The problem, Einstein, is the one beer in the 22-ounce bottle is enjoyed with a half a bag of pretzels, a few handfuls of Cheez Its, another bottle of beer and then some ice cream, eaten right out of the container that you think no one knows about.  And then a couple pieces of candy just so you don't have to walk back up the stairs all alone.  And just for a nightcap, you get into the fridge-type thing that's upstairs and grab another bottle, just because you're tipsy by then and think that calories consumed when you're tipsy don't count.  

Me:  Point taken.



We seem to be near a mutiny.  I'm getting little cooperation from the troops.  This is a problem because in addition to wanting to be cougar-bait on my golf trip in May, I was hoping to participate in some 5K thing my wife's company is throwing.  I call it the Ten Toes for Kiddoes because the thing benefits kiddoes in some way, but the higher ups had already named it something far less cool.  Anyway, I think that's in April so I have to start making some headway.

The past two weeks have not been a good start as I'm already up a pound and a half.

What a great day to be alive

Due to my football team's lack of skills, football season for me is now over.  No more entire weekends of watching TV the whole day.  No more Monday nights of doing nothing.  It's time to bring the troops back in and start progressing on our march.

Currently, I sit at a staggering 192.6 (I was surprised it was that low).  I'm now wearing a B-cup and I keep getting phone calls from the local OB/GYNs trying to drum up my business.  I'll have no more of it.  I'm lazy and I look like shit.  Well, I look as bad as a hot guy can look.

So, the troops have been brought in to discuss the latest iteration of Operation: Fat Bastard, which we're considering calling Operation: Fatter Bastard.  I always like to give the guys not only a goal, but a deadline in which to accomplish the goal.

Despite being off any and all payrolls, I'm still going on my golf trip this year.  Jennifer and I are leaving just past midnight on the morning of May 9.  That gives me just shy of four months to drop some pounds.  As is normally the case, the goal is for the scale to start with a 1 proceeded by a 7.  After that, I don't care what it says.

I gave the troops their orders today and away I went on the dreadmill.  It's been over two months since I'd turned the thing on and I was happy I remember which buttons to push to make it do things.  Sadly, just programming the time, my weight, and the speed and incline, I worked up a bit of a sweat.  But because I'm a warrior, I continued.

My intent was not to jog today, but simply make sure my shoes still fit and to get my body accustomed to the beating it was going to take.  I thought a couple miles of walking would be a good start.

Slowly (3.9 MPH), and with a gentle incline (3.0) I began with left foot in front of right foot, then right foot in front of left foot.  Nothing to it, I thought.  I was listening to The Promise by When In Rome and kind of lost track of what was going on.  The song ended and the aching in my knees suggested I'd been on the dreadmill for quite some time.  Yep, one minute and 20 seconds to be precise.  Two minutes later the little shin splinty things started to act up.

Fortunately, about that time, Monty walked into the mancave.  This was odd because I clearly remembered letting both dogs outside before I went upstairs.  I paused the forward march and ran downstairs.  Yep, the back door was standing wide open.  I'd yell at Hayden for this, but since it was me, I'm going to let it slide.

Back up to the dreadmill, Monty followed and was dying to get on.  She'd put one paw on and then watch in horror as that paw slid towards the back.  It took her about four attempts before she decided to lay on the floor next to me and keep and eye out for insurgents.

I stopped at 2 miles for a variety of reasons.  First, it's a nice round number.  But mostly it was because my feet were burning hot.  I'd lost feeling in both knees around 1.3 miles so I was able to continue, but my feet were on fire and judging by the smokey scent in the air, they might have been.

Two miles and about 355 calories burned in the books.

I'm the parent of 'that child' and 'that dog'

Last night was the first night of puppy school for Monty.  I'd been waiting for this for 5 or 6 weeks now and had purposely not worked with her in the interim because I didn't want to start teaching her one way of doing things and then confuse her with a different method.

Despite being a German Shepherd, Monty is a fraidy-cat at home.  When she hears the neighbor's dogs bark, she immediately runs and hides behind me. While I really wanted an attack dog, I was somewhat happy with her submissiveness, thinking that she'd be quiet at school.

EPIC fail.  Epic is in caps for a reason, it was the mother of all fails.

We arrived a few minutes late which really set the tone.  Before we left, I checked my little duffel bag to make sure we had everything we needed.  Sadly, I forgot to put everything back in, so as we were driving to school, I realized the mistake and headed back home.

So, as mentioned, we arrived a couple minutes late.  We walked into a group of people, all holding the leases of their little pups.  Monty immediately started barking at them.  And barking.  And barking.  And barking.

Despite what some may think, I don't normally like to draw attention to myself.  Sure, once in a while I do, but most of the time I'm quiet and try to keep to myself.  That didn't happen last night.  Everyone was making sure to see who the deadbeat dad was who couldn't control their dog.

After a few minutes, the assistant to the instructor, and old bag of a lady, walked over to me and said, "I wouldn't let him get away with that." (By the way, Monty is a girl)  My first reaction was complete shock.  It totally caught me off guard.  My second reaction was to tell the old bag of a lady to get out of my business.  However, I'm now on happy pills and far more mature than I used to be so I went with my third reaction..."Well, I'm hoping you guys will teach me how."

Another minute or two of barking ensued before the bag lady came by with a spray bottle.  She gave Monty a quick spray and it shut her up.  The bag lady smiled a horribly, ugly smile and turned around.  Monty realized she was ok and proceeded to continue barking.  The bag lady came at Monty one more time and zapped her.  This time Monty snapped at the water bottle.  While it probably wasn't the proper thing for Monty to do, I was very proud of her for letting the bag lady know what's what.

A couple more minutes went by before the lead instructor mentioned, "Maybe you should take her outside and walk her around the yard."  Seven or eight minutes in and we'd already been relegated to time out.  This wasn't the start I'd hope for.

Hayden and I walked the puppy outside for a few minutes, then went back inside.  At this point, Monty was settling down and getting tired of barking.  She only barked when another puppy made eye contact or got too close.  The class went into introductions and when it came to me, I mentioned who Hayden and I were and said, "You've already met Monty."  There were smiles, except from the bag lady, and the introductions continued.

The whole time, the bag lady was staring at Monty.  And then at me.  And then at Monty.  And then at me again.  Bitch.

For the rest of the night, Monty did fairly well.  She only tried to eat a couple of the dogs and for the most part only barked when she felt another dog was staring at her or tried to invade her space.

I'm already not looking forward to next week because I'm afraid they're going to give me my money back and ask that I leave Monty at home.  However, I'm very proud of Monty for both snapping at the water bottle and for trying to fend off the bad puppies, even though the other puppies weren't bad (the little Great Dane puppy might have been as cute as Monty).

I don't know if she'll ever learn to sit, stay, and not jump on people, but at least the house will be protected.