Under a Gibbous Moon

Sorry about the lack of updates through the month of November but NaNoWriMo really kicked my ass this year.

I did manage to hit 50,000 words again this year but it was a push near the end. I did basically the last half of the novel in the last week. I was totally unprepared this year which was kind of sad because I had the basic idea planned for most of the year but then I decided I didn’t like it and started prep on another, decided I didn’t like that one, and then went back and reworked my original idea into something different. Come November 1st, I didn’t even know how the novel was going to start.

I spent hours of precious writing time just doing the research that I needed to do the actual writing. It was not a pretty sight. My browser would have so many tabs open that it was difficult to actually click on them.

So now that it’s finally December I can go back to doing other things with my free time  than just writing.

Still, it was worth it.

I did a raw meet yesterday. I wasn’t expecting much of a performance since I have been killing my lifts with this whole weight loss thing. Also, due to being short handed, I set up the meet venue (the platform, equipment, and weights) and spotted and loaded as well as competing.

Anyway, I weighed in at 135 kg flat. (297.6 lbs) This puts me 10 kg from the top of my weight class and 10 kgs from the bottom. Needless to say, I wasn’t worried about what weight class I was going to be in. I haven’t competed or been under 300 lbs for about 3 years. The weightloss/ dieting has made my performance a little hit or miss, so I opened conservatively to make sure I stayed in the game.

Squats
1st – 230 kg (507 lbs) good and easy
2nd -250 kg (551 lbs) good- slow but smooth
3rd -265 kg (584 lbs) miss – bad techique and too slow

Bench
1st – 185 kg (407 lbs) good and easy
2nd -195 kg (430 lbs) good but slow
3rd -197.5kg(435 lbs) miss

My right shoulder has been giving me a lot of trouble and squat just took too much out of it. It was hurting a lot during these. Maybe I could have got the third, but it hurt and this meet isn’t that important. Too bad. I did a solid pause with 200 kg on Monday, but of course I didn’t squat right before that.

Deadlift
1st – 250 kg (551 lbs) Good and easy
2nd -275 kg (607 lbs) Good and easy
3rd -295 kg (650 lbs) Miss.

I was tired. Plain and simple. I have been having trouble with deadlift lately and 600 lbs has been a hard pull. The 607 went well enough that I thought I could get the 650. I got it off the floor and I could feel my middle traps just give out and relax and I hunched over. I decided not to risk it and just set it back down.

Total was 720 kg or 1588 lbs. If I was paying attention, I would have called somewhere around 630 instead and cleared 1600. Anyway this is about a 100 lbs less than my best raw total. No pictures and no video. When the meet was done, disassemble everything and load the trailer and take the equipment back to Macomb and unload it that. I had much more help for the disassembly, so that wasn’t so bad. I was still pretty beat. In my usual fashion, I also did not sleep the night before because that just isn’t my style, apparently.

Coloring books are favorite standby for children. The subject matter is usually benign and involves cuddly animals, popular characters from children’s media, cars, and dinosaurs. This is from the back cover of the latter.

There is just no good way to explain this image. It is nice to see carnivores and herbivores getting along, I guess.

I recently received an email from Facebook informing me that I had not logged in in a long time. In addition to informing me of thing I already knew, it went on to tell me about all the friend requests, notifications, and pictures I had been tagged in.

Dear Facebook,

If I cared, I would have logged in.

Thank you.

Well, I’ve decided to come out of self imposed exile. It has been a while since I have posted anything on here but there have been good reasons (including but not limited to):

• I moved
• Class work
• NaNoWriMo is rapidly approaching
• I didn’t feel like it

On the other hand, an internet black out was kind of relaxing. No blogging, no RSS feeds, no web comics, no Twitter, and just enough email to keep me functional at work and school. All good things must come to an end though and I figured what better day for that than the one year anniversary of Under a Gibbous Moon. Hard to believe, but I started this one year ago today. Take a moment to reflect on that…

OK, enough of that; back to the madness!