I began meditating back in 2004. I would sit each morning in the dark on the sofa with a dog under each arm. I would take long deep breaths and I’d let my mind wander. I followed the advice of some guru to imagine my thoughts as objects floating past me in a stream….
Painting Through The Pandemic
I have been painting throughout the pandemic. Here are my subjects: Landscapes – originally following Bob Ross tutorials, then other “wet on wet” tutorials and, after hundreds of hours and many mistakes, on my own. Seascapes and Deserts – After following some tutorials, I have branched out to freehand painting from my imagination The Forest –…
7 Weeks Post-Op, Pools Reopening, Prasara Yoga
July 3, 2020 I am 7 weeks post-op and I’m nearly 100% recovered! My workouts are back to being full-on intensity. I’m back up to 100 pull-up workouts, intense ring work, gymnastics and hard core calisthenics. This week I began a new type of yoga called Prasara. I had been doing a modified version of…
Covid-19 Lessons from the Black Plague
As I mentioned in an earlier post, I’ve been watching the lecture series “The Black Death” on Amazon. With death rates of 40-60% of the population, a series of waves across 18 months and the plague returning every 10 years for centuries, the Black Death changed the world. This series gave me a different perspective…
Missing Time
When I had hernia surgery last month, I was given anesthesia for the first time in my life. The anesthesiologist told me she would give me something to “take the edge off” as I was being wheeled down to the OR, Then once in the OR, I’d be given propofol for sedation during the surgery….
Match Game
A friend’s recent success in finding a great woman to date online enticed me to check out Match.com despite my better judgement. I logged into Match.com, created a profile and spent several hours searching for women to date. Here’s what I found: When I specified “Athletic”, the search returned women who were overweight but exercised…
Working Out, Lockdowns and George Floyd
I am 5 weeks post-op and I’m crushing it. My workouts have improved markedly every day since I began exercising again – hesitantly and tentatively – 2 weeks ago. Since then, I’ve gone from about 10% to close to 90%. At week 6, my surgeon said the majority of my healing will be complete and…
Stay Vigilant
How exactly is “staying vigilant” going to protect society from the Covid-19 coronavirus? This is simply another useless platitude pitched by the government and repeated by the media until it becomes part of our vernacular. It reminds of some others that were equally as ineffective:
The Internet Has Jumped the Shark
When I first got online with AOL back in the early 90s, I was smitten. Chat rooms connected me to people all over the country. Websites had information on products, how to instructions and even library materials. Email let me send information to my customers instantly vs. faxing or messengering did. I was sure the…
First Day Of Exercising After Surgery and Some Post-Op Paintings
I finally started exercising for the first time since my surgery three weeks ago. The first day was rough. I am tentative because I do not want to rip out my stitches by pushing myself too hard. I found that even doing a scaled back workout at about 10% the intensity of my pre-surgery workout…