The 4-9 Shift

As I mentioned before, my part time job in high school was working as a stocker/bag boy at the local Ebeling’s IGA grocery store. Many legends of Norway, Michigan, worked there before and after me, and I am incredibly grateful for the good times that were had and life skills that were learned working that job. During the school year, I typically only worked weekends because I always had some kind of sports practice after school, but occasionally there would be a week or two between one sport ending and another beginning, so my boss Dave Ebeling would put me on a few weekday 4-9 PM shifts. Those weekday 4-9 shifts had certain characteristics, some of which were awesome and some of which sucked. Anyone who worked at the IGA back in those days will surely recognize these traits and hopefully get a laugh.

1. When you came in to work, you knew the back area was going to be fucked. This never failed. See, the back area had a section that was completely dedicated to sorting empty bottles and cans that had been brought back for the Michigan $.10 refund. There was a bin for just about everything you can imagine: plastic, aluminum, Coke, Pepsi, Miller, Budweiser, you name it. Sorting returns was a nasty job because, inevitably, you’d get splashed with empty cans that were still half full of stale beer or had been used as chew spitters before being discarded. Once a bin of empties was full, you’d pull the giant garbage bag out of the bin, tie it up, and fire it down the stairs to the basement. Every so often a truck would come to pick up the empties, and we’d have to go downstairs, wade through mountains of garbage bags to find all the ones of a certain brand, and then haul them back up to the loading dock so the truck could take them away. It was a quite a system. Many of the people who worked the day shift acted like they were too good to sort empties, so when the 4-9 workers came in, the back area would just be full of shopping carts haphazardly stacked with returns. All of this crap had to get sorted and cleaned up before going home at 9 or else we’d get an earful. It pissed us off to no end.

2. Funny customers would come in. Some silly things always seemed to happen on the 4-9 shift. One time my boss Craig was showing me where he wanted a new aisle end display put up, when we both noticed a guy by the canned fruits and vegetables stuffing items into the inner pockets of his winter coat, prompting a visit from the local cops.

   Another time, I happened upon this guy who was holding a 40-oz of Miller Lite and anxiously walking up and down the aisle that had over-the-counter medicines and what not. “Hey Man, you guys sell condoms?” he whispered to me. The guy caught me off guard, and I really didn’t know the answer. After talking to Craig, I had to regretfully go tell the guy we didn’t sell condoms. Craig, being a very shrewd businessman, had condoms on the shelf about a month later. I wonder if there is a person walking around who was conceived that night because the Ebeling’s IGA in Norway, Michigan, didn’t sell condoms at the time.

   This one guy, who I knew worked as a custodian at the school, would come in and buy two 40s of Hamm’s beer. I don’t know who in their right mind would drink Hamm’s, but I guess it was cheap and got the job done.

3. Old school fear of missing out made time stand still. I worked at Ebeling’s from 1999-2002, so this was years before I ever had a cell phone or the ability to easily text or otherwise communicate with my friends. If I was working a Friday night shift, my friends would often swing by at some point to pick up supplies and let me know where they were going to be later in the night. One time, I had just carried out for an old lady when a group of my friends pulled up with the windows down and “TNT” by AC/DC blasting. It always sounded like I was missing something incredibly fun, so I would start watching the clock and time would drag on until 9:00.

4. Winner, Winner, Chicken Dinner. Ebeling’s had a great deli section that had things like fried chicken, potato wedges, pasties (not pastries, pasties…look it up if you’re unfamiliar), and a whole lot more. At the end of the day, instead of just throwing out the extra food that hadn’t sold, the deli ladies would put it on the break table in the back so we could feast. It cannot be overstated how much food I would stuff down when I got my 15-minute break. I’d eat until my eyes were seeing double and I could hardly move. Oftentimes, I would get a massive stomach ache from eating so much so quickly, but it was worth it, and I loved those deli counter ladies for hooking us up.

5. Mama P. would stock up. Now, this didn’t happen every 4-9 shift, but it certainly happened a lot. Ms. Pollard, affectionately known as Mama P., was a teacher of Home Economics and Foods, classes where students learned how to cook and do basic things in the kitchen. There were many times I was out on the floor stocking a shelf or doing some other kind of work when I would spot Mama P. pushing not one but two shopping carts that were both completely piled with food for her classroom. It was insane how many items she would fit into those carts. Mama P. liked to come into the store when she knew it wouldn’t be super busy, like after 8 PM or when she knew something was happening that would keep people away. One Super Bowl Sunday, I was watching the big game on the 13-inch television in the meat room when I got called to pack up one of Mama P.’s massive grocery hauls. I couldn’t believe I was having to do work at work. It seemed like it took forever to get everything packed up and out to Mama P.’s car, but she was always appreciative. I never thought too much about it at the time, but the fact that Mama P. was doing school work stuff at night was just one example of how much she cared about us kids. She really went the extra mile for her students and always held us to a high standard with a firm but gentle touch.

6. We had to sweep the floors. As the end of the shift approached, we had to get out the big push broom and start making our way around the store. Like a lot of other things in that job, there was an art to this project. Up and down all the aisles, around display cases, make a pile in a spot where a customer wouldn’t walk through it and kick it around, shake the broom off outside…it was a whole thing. We would always tell the new guys they had to go all the way down the block in front of ERA Chevrolet to shake off the broom or Craig would get mad. Nothing like a little first-day hazing to keep things entertaining. Making the final passes with the broom as the lights began to dim and the day wound down always left me with a peaceful feeling, like the hard work was done and the day was over. Well, at least until I could meet up with my friends and blow off some steam with whatever was going on that night.

If you worked at Ebeling’s and enjoyed reading this, let me know what you remember and/or what I missed. I’d love to hear some old stories.

Suburbans and Baseball Sets

Last summer I had the privilege of sitting around with some old high school friends, having a few beers, and telling old and new stories. My buddy Poike asked the group about our earliest memories in life. My fourth birthday, April 18, 1988, is by far my most vivid, earliest memory, and it stands out largely because of my dad, Rich Henrion, and two major events that, unbeknownst to me at the time, would play a very big role in my life for the next several years.

I was in the backyard playing with my sisters when all of a sudden my dad pulled into the driveway in his brand new 1988 Chevrolet Suburban, a blue and white tank that was destined to become part of our family’s lore. Over the next 13 years or so, this vehicle would take our family to Cape Cod, the Florida Keys, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Myrtle Beach, and all points in between. The memories made with friends and family in the Suburban are surely too many to name, but it’s safe to say we all spent thousands of hours in that vehicle, and it was well-known around our small community. A few years ago, I was hiking with a friend in Chattanooga, Tennesee. Her father had, unfortunately, just passed away, and we got to talking about dads. I told her that one time my dad explained to me that it was always important to him to have a vehicle with a third row seat and legal seating for eight. With this extra capacity, my whole family, my mom, dad, two older sisters, and me could go on a trip, and each of us kids could bring a friend. My dad was pretty unique in that way. Not everyone is that generous or thinks that much about creating experiences for others. You see, we grew up in a real small town that could feel somewhat insulated from the rest of the world, but my dad knew it was important to get out, wander, explore, and show us kids life outside of Norway, Michigan. He wanted to share travel experiences with as many people as possible, and while most of our friends had great parents, none of them were aggressive travelers like my dad. The trips my dad planned were big, bold, and packed with as much fun and activities as possible. There was no wasted time, and the family bonding experiences are with me forever.

Now, aside from the new family chariot, I got this baseball set as a gift. The set had a bat, a ball, and a home plate with a net attached to the back of it that held the three other soft rubber bases and a few baseballs. This may seem like just a standard gift for a sports-obsessed kid turning four, but it became much more to me than just another birthday present, and I probably got more use out of it than any gift I’ve ever received. My dad was always up for a game of catch or ready to throw when I wanted to do some batting practice. That little baseball set came on every trip we took in the blue Suburban. We’d be on a long road trip and bust out an impromptu game of pitch and catch at random rest stops all across the country. One time in Milwaukee we found this out-of-the-way park and I crushed a ball that almost took out my cousin Erik’s kneecap. Playing baseball on the beautiful lawn of the capital building in Sacramento, California, in the summer of 1992 is something I still remember to this day. There are a thousand other sessions I could describe with that baseball set, and many of them involve road trips with my amazing, fun-loving dad.

Thanks, Dad.

Mr. Madigan

There have been a few times in my 37 years on this planet where I have met someone and immediately knew that they were special and were going to massively influence the direction of my life. It was immediately obvious that this unsolicited guidance was non-negotiable, that my path, at least for a period of time, was going to be intertwined and pulled along by the powerful wake of this other person’s influence. It was kind of like God had dropped this other person and me into the same time and place, smiled, sat back, and said to anyone who would listen, “Hey…watch this.”

Mr. Madigan was one of these people.

Disclaimer: While I don’t believe there is anything bad or offensive in this post, please keep in mind that the world was different 20+ years ago. We have all changed over the years, grown up, and moved on. Also, all of these stories are how I remember them to the best of my ability. Certainly some folks may remember things differently, and I’m fine with that.

Geometry

Mr. Madigan has been mentioned in a few previous posts, mostly in the context of getting me started on my first day in the high school weight room and making sure everyone understood that AC/DC’s “The Jack” was the ultimate lifting song. But my relationship with Mr. Madigan really started in the fall of 1998 when I walked into his geometry class for the first period of my first day of high school. My assigned seat was directly in front of Mr. Madigan’s desk in the front left corner of his classroom. If we were both at our desks, we were basically staring each other right in the face. I was intimidated as hell as I listened to Mr. Madigan go over his rules, standards, and expectations for the year. He took pride in making geometry a tough and rigorous math class where every proof had to be built from the ground up on a solid foundation of indisputable mathematical axioms. This format would serve me well when I got to college and took geometry with Dr. Bob Myers, another ass-kicker who tolerated zero bullshit and held his students to incredibly high standards.

“Statement, Reason, Given, Picture, Proof. That’s how we show our work in here,” Mr. Madigan explained to us on that first day. The fact that I remember this 23 years later shows what a masterful job he did of beating it into our heads. To this day, I am a very logical thinker whose brain shorts out when things do not seem balanced or harmonious. I partially blame Mr. Madigan’s problem-solving approach for this character trait. Mr. Madigan also took this first day to explain to us his grading system and the importance of the Christmas Test. When most teachers were winding things down as the holidays approached at the end of the calendar year, Mr. Madigan was cranking things up by giving us a long and brutal exam that was printed on festive red and green paper. It was evident that there were going to be no easy days with Mr. Madigan.

Track

Spring of my freshman year rolled around, and that meant track season. Mr. Madigan was the boys track coach which offered me the opportunity to get to know him in a totally different role than in geometry class. For the most part, Mr. Madigan made track really fun. My friends and I didn’t feel the same pressure from track that we felt during football and basketball season. Everyone in town wasn’t invested in wins and losses and wasn’t constantly offering advice or pointing out mistakes from previous games. During track, we just showed up, ran our events, and shared a whole bunch of laughs during all the downtime in between events and on the bus rides. Mr. Madigan was my track coach all four years of high school, and I can’t pass up sharing a few stories. I’m aware that these might be “you had to be there” moments, but whatever.

The Grill

Like many high school track teams, we had some really big strong kids who threw the shotput and discus but didn’t participate in any running events. These kids were typically stout linemen or linebackers during football season who were built for short explosive power but weren’t really going to be competitive in sprint races. Since the throwing events were usually held off to the side away from the actual track, they would start right away and then the throwers would have several hours to just hang out until the meet was over and everybody could go home. Some of our throwers got the idea to start bringing a grill to the meets so they could cook up some burgers and steaks in the parking lot while the rest of the meet was happening. One time, a coach from another school who treated track like a life or death scenario had seen some of our guys grilling in the parking lot from a distance but couldn’t identify they were from our school. The way Mr. Madigan told it, the conversation went something like this…

Other Coach (extremely aggravated): Can you believe some school brought a grill and there are guys out in the parking lot like it’s some kind of tailgate party or something?

Mr. Madigan (playing dumb): Oh, really? I hadn’t noticed.

Other Coach (growing furious): Yeah. It’s ridiculous. It’s like they’re not even taking the meet seriously. Why even show up?

Mr. Madigan (looking for a way to get out of the conversation): Yeah, I can’t imagine.

Derek (one of our throwers/grillmasters who walked up on the conversation): Hey Mr. Madigan, do you want cheese on your burger?

Mr. Madigan (covering his face and trying not to burst into laughter): Oh my God.

The Band

We had a few guys on the track team that also played in the school band, and sometimes our track meets would conflict with various band concerts, competitions, and events. The old school “Band Geek” colloquialism sure didn’t fit some of our track guys. I remember one guy in particular being an extremely tough competitor who had absolutely no quit in him. If memory serves me correctly, a typical meet day for him consisted of running the 800, 1600, 3200 and 4x800 relay. He always went balls to the wall and we had all the faith in the world in him for getting us valuable team points when we needed them. One season we got burned several times because some of our good athletes kept having to miss track meets for band commitments. Band was an extracurricular activity, but it was also a class, and the teacher threatened to start doling out bad grades to kids if they missed any of the spring band events. I have no problem with the band, and I wish I had learned to play an instrument when I was in high school, but the fact that we were losing track meets that we could have won because of this situation was frustrating to everyone on the team.

One day at practice, one of the band kids told Mr. Madigan that he would have to miss the next meet, and Mr. Madigan finally said what we were all thinking. “Why don’t we say, ‘Screw the band for once, huh?’ We’re trying to win a U.P. track title here.”

Of course we all burst into laughter and immediately adopted this phrase into our daily life. Every time something about the band would come up, my friends and I would say to each other, “Why don’t we say, ‘Screw the band for once, huh?’”

Running Through Snowflakes

One time we were scheduled to go to a three-team meet in Munising, Mr. Madigan’s alma mater and beautiful hometown that sits right on the shore of Lake Superior. The other traveling team, Ishpeming, canceled because of cold weather and snow in the forecast. Keep in mind this is during track season in mid-April. Also, as a general rule, if Ishpeming is canceling due to inclement weather, you know the weather is going to be pretty radically bad. Well, never one to miss a chance to travel to his hometown, Mr. Madigan and his valiant Knights of Norway braved the two-hour bus ride to Munising. The meet itself was complete misery. It was windy and freezing cold as we all laid on the track infield/football field trying to stay warm. I distinctly remember running the 300-meter intermediate hurdles as snowflakes came down, pelting my face and making Munising’s cement track extra slippery. At least I had an excuse for my insanely slow time that day. Years later, when I was teaching in Arizona, I volunteered to help out at a track meet that our school was hosting. I remember trying not to laugh as I heard one coach explain to another that it was completely unsafe for kids to run in temperatures less than 70 degrees. I guess he had never been to Munising.

Random Events

I have no idea what it’s like now, but when I was in high school, a kid could participate in four events at a track meet. My three regular events were the high jump, 110-meter high hurdles, and 300-meter intermediate hurdles. Sometime during my sophomore year, Mr. Madigan started this thing where he would identify random events that still had an opening and just put my name down. We’d be on the bus going to the meet and Mr. Madigan would come back with his clipboard and go through each event, reading off participant names.

“Henrion, you’re running the two mile today.”

“What?!” I would reply. “I’ve never practiced or run the two mile.”

Mr. Madigan would smile and do his sadistic laugh. “You’ll be fine.”

All my friends, never quick to offer any sympathy, would of course laugh too.

So this was how track went for me. I was extremely average at the high jump and hurdles races and God-awful at the other random races I had to run. I’m pretty sure I ran every event in track at least once by the time my career was over. Looking back, it was a great, and hilarious, experience, but at the time it was annoying and I got my ass handed to me most of the time.

My World Record Relay

One time we had a meet in Stephenson (ugh, I hated going to Stephenson) and one of the guys on our 4x100 relay team got hurt or didn’t feel like running that day or whatever. So, doing his usual thing on the bus ride on the way to the meet, Mr. Madigan told me that I was running the first leg of the 4x100 race. My pleading that I had never run this race or practiced passing a baton didn’t change Mr. Madigan’s mind, so I accepted my fate. When the time for the 4x100 came, I took my starting blocks and started following the official to the starting line for my primo lane four assignment. Remember, the 4x100 has each team staying in their lane the entire race, so there is a staggered start to compensate for the longer and shorter running distances that result from the two turns on the track. Well, as I followed the official, I noticed that he goofed up and walked right past my lane’s 4x100 start line and all the way to the start line for the 300-meter intermediate hurdles race. I looked to my right and the guy in lane five was setting up his blocks right next to me when really I should have been several meters back since I had the lane inside of him. You might be thinking that an honest person with some integrity would have notified the official of his error and moved back to the appropriate starting line, but I was a little bitter about having to run this race and decided I was going to take every advantage I could get. It turns out there was one other person in the stadium who noticed what happened. I slowly looked around to see if anyone was going to catch the official’s mistake, and when I did, the dad of someone on the girls track team was standing along the fence pretty much right even with my starting position. In that moment, he and I shared an unspoken understanding as he simply gave me a wink, smile, and nod. So we finally got set and the starting gun went off and I exploded out of the blocks, giving it my all. Because of my advantageous start position, it looked like I had made up the entire stagger about a step and a half into the race. I could hear the crowd screaming as I pumped my arms and legs, hoping to not drop the baton and seeing my teammate standing down the track waiting for the handoff. Fortunately, I only had to take about ten steps before I was on him and could give the baton to an actual fast person. The other three guys on the team were strong runners so we completely dominated the race. Mr. Madigan ran up to us afterwards all excited and screaming, “Henrion! That was amazing! You’re the new opening leg on that race!” After explaining to Mr. Madigan what had happened, he laughed and said, “Oh, well, good job anyway!”

The Henrion Award

A few weeks into my junior year track season, I broke up with my girlfriend. We had been together awhile, and I was only 16 so this was kind of a tough thing for me. One afternoon, word got out that instead of heading down to the track for practice after school, we were all to report to Mr. Madigan’s classroom for an emergency meeting. When everyone was gathered in Mr. Madigan’s classroom, he started speaking in a real somber and serious tone, something I had never previously seen from Mr. Madigan. He was going on about ups and downs in life and how it was important to stay positive even when experiencing loss. Most of us, myself included, had no idea what was going on. I noticed a few of the guys start to smirk when Mr. Madigan went behind his desk and reached down for something on the floor. He came out with a huge old track trophy that had been, well, let’s say repurposed, just for me. The masking tape placard on the bottom read HENRION AWARD and the metal runner striving for the finish line on top was sporting a t-shirt that read FREE and a broken chain around the neck that was now blowing in the runner’s tailwind. Everyone in the room burst into laughter as I sat there with my jaw on the floor. I truly did not know what to say. I was so grateful for Mr. Madigan and that group of guys. It was impossible to feel bad around them. They were my tribe.

After everyone else had cleared out of the room to head down to the track, Mr. Madigan said something to me privately that really made me evaluate how I thought about myself and my relationships. He probably doesn’t even remember saying it, but I took it to heart and it changed my outlook on a little of things going forward.

I wonder if that trophy is still in my parents’ basement. I’ll have to take a look the next time I’m home.

Norway High School Boys Track, 2002. Mr. Madigan is in the top row on the far left.

Physics

So I got my annual dose of Mr. Madigan during spring track season, but my senior year finally came around and I got to have him as a teacher again, this time for physics. Just like in geometry, Mr. Madigan had rigorous standards for how we had to solve problems and show our work in physics class. Again, this approach served me well as I ended up going on to study physics in college and currently make a living because of the problem-solving base Mr. Madigan helped me develop. I’ve drawn a lot of free-body diagrams in my lifetime.

I had always really liked social studies and English class, but it seemed like my whole senior year all Mr. Madigan, Mr. Pollard, and Mr. Leiker talked about was studying physics, engineering, and/or computer science at Michigan Tech. I didn’t end up going to Michigan Tech (sorry, gentlemen), but the fact that those guys steered me in the direction of hard science and math really changed the course of my whole life. My current job and all the opportunities and cool things I’ve done would never have happened if not for Mr. Madigan, his physics class, and the influence of Mr. Pollard and Mr. Leiker.

Risk-o

Some time around 8th or 9th grade, my buddy Poike got the board game Risk (“Risk-o” in Mr. Madigan’s parlance). My friends and I were all super competitive with each other, so we would have these massive games with 4-6 people that would last all day and night. Fights would break out and people would accuse each other of cheating and call each other names. It was great.

One day Mr. Madigan overheard us talking about Risk and got all fired up because he used to play in college with a bunch of friends.

“This one guy thought he had me beat because I had a final exam starting in ten minutes and my back was against the wall. I said, ‘GIMME THE DICE.’”

We all loved Mr. Madigan and knew a game of Risk with him would be a riot, so we set it up and rode our bicycles out to his house one Saturday afternoon. We played out on the back deck of his house and had a blast. We quickly learned that Mr. Madigan always had to have possession of Madagascar, and if anyone took it from him he would become livid. There was the predictable screaming and finger pointing, and at one point, Mr. Madigan took things up a notch by grabbing some of Poike’s army game pieces and throwing them off the back deck into his chicken coop. Mr. Madigan called Poike, “The Dealer,” that whole afternoon as he accused Poike of being in cahoots with our friend Tony and making deals rather than strategically attacking. We played Risk over at Mr. Madigan’s house a handful of times and it was always incredibly fun with lots of quotable moments that we would repeat for weeks afterwards.

Mr. Madigan actually got me a Risk game and gave it to me at my graduation party. I still have it, but I’m missing five rowdy and passionate friends to play against.

Like Men

If it wasn’t already obvious, my friends and I loved Mr. Madigan. He was kind of crazy and would occasionally scream at the top of his lungs, so there was never a dull moment. My friends and I would be having a normal day or hanging out chatting and Mr. Madigan would come rampaging onto the scene, making jokes and good-naturedly teasing us about girlfriends, sports, classes, whatever. The thing with Mr. Madigan was that even though we were just a group of goofy high school boys, he treated us like men. Mr. Madigan never treated us like fragile little kids who couldn’t handle some criticism. He was hard on us and had high expectations for our academic and athletic performance. Mr. Madigan would get in our faces and be a jerk when we needed it, but it was all in an effort to make sure we knew where we stood, who was in charge, and where we needed to get better. We didn’t always like it, but it was usually exactly what we needed to hear and we learned to deal with it.

Last summer, I was back in my small hometown of Norway, Michigan, to celebrate the 4th of July weekend with my family. One sunny afternoon, I was out cruising around in my rental car when I happened to catch Mr. Madigan about to start walking up his driveway. I briefly debated whether or not I should turn my car around and go back to say hello. You know how it is. Sometimes you haven’t seen someone in ages (in this case about 11 years) or really kept in touch, so you don’t know if it will be awkward or if the person will even care to see you. It happens to everyone. I get it. But I had also made it a point on this trip to not shy away from these types of encounters, so I whipped a U-turn and caught Mr. Madigan before he could head into his house. It took him a second to recognize me, but once he did he gave me the same emphatic recognition, handshake, and manly slap on the back that I always cherished from Mr. Madigan. We chatted for about half an hour and it was wonderful. We laughed about old times, talked about family, and shared some career highlights and changes. I tried to explain to Mr. Madigan how much of an influence he had on my life, but it was hard to get the words out. Maybe this will help.

Thanks, Mr. Madigan.

Getting Better

There were 13 people at the 0530 Wednesday morning jiu-jitsu class today. At one point we were drilling and I was in a group of three, patiently standing aside and waiting my turn. I looked across the mat at this fine group of people and just admired the passion and dedication I witnessed in that moment. Every person there had made an effort to get their ass out of bed, drive to the gym, and physically exert themselves in an effort to get better. The atmosphere was uplifting, with everyone helping and respecting each other while simultaneously trying to kick ass.

Perhaps I think too much about the big picture of life sometimes, but this morning I was thinking about how when I’m 80 years old, if I make it that long, I’ll think back to times like these when I had a strong healthy body and a gym full of people willing to help me get better. You can’t buy that moment in time. You can just smile and savor it when it comes.

Camping with Friends 2021

This past weekend, I traveled back to Michigan to go camping with some old college friends at Newaygo State Park. It seemed like a really long drive and I had just gotten back from Denver four days prior, but every bit of planning, effort, and cost turned out to be well worth it. This group of friends is so special to me for so many reasons. These are people I lived with in the dorms at Northern Michigan University when I was just out of high school and living outside of my small hometown and away from my parents for the first time. In so many ways, my group of NMU friends became a new family that always had my back and never made me feel like I had to be anyone other than myself. They laugh at the same stupid stories they’ve heard me tell a million times, make fun of the way my hair is turning gray, and open up about the triumph and tragedies in their own lives. Some of them are married, a few have kids, all are doing really cool things in life. It was a weekend full of being around people who add an indescribable amount of value to my life. It restored my soul and filled my heart with gratitude for the journey my life has taken.

I was sitting there Saturday morning watching Alicia make pancakes for her kids and I just said, “Alicia, you’re one of my favorite people.” It was kind of out of nowhere, but I just wanted her to know. I meant it wholeheartedly. This group has enriched my life in ways they’ll never know. I love them all.

Igor, Mark, Hammer, and Big John,

August 14, 2021

Marion Park

This summer has been really outstanding thus far, partly because I was able to travel back to Michigan’s beautiful Upper Peninsula for a long 4th of July holiday weekend. It had been nearly two and a half years since I had been back to visit my family. My 2020 trip got canceled because of COVID and Zeus getting sick and having to be put down the weekend I was supposed to be in Michigan. It was amazing getting to spend time with family and relax around some people that I truly trust. There is something to be said about people who don’t expect me to be anything but myself. As an added bonus, I got to catch up with some childhood friends that I, sadly, don’t get to see nearly often enough. The great thing about that group of guys is that we immediately fall back into our old friendships. It’s like we haven’t seen each other in five minutes even though it’s really been five years and life has dramatically changed for all of us.

I’ve been slowly building a collection of kettlebells back home, and I now have two 24s and a newly added 32. On my first morning home, I loaded my bells into my rental car and headed out to Marion Park, a large recreational area that includes baseball fields, tennis courts, pavilions, playgrounds, and a set of pull-up bars that is just tall enough for me to use. It was a beautiful sunny morning and I was able to comfortably train in nothing but a pair of gym shorts. The actual workout can be found in my training log, so I won’t re-hash it again, but I want to elaborate on Marion Park and the huge role it played in my life. When I really sat down and thought about it, I realized that so many childhood memories took place at that park.

Some of my earliest memories are playing tee ball and what we called minor league baseball out at Marion Park. One time in tee ball, I took a huge swing, missed the stationary ball, and swung all the way around and accidentally let go of my bat, throwing it at my coach. I still remember the guy’s name, and I would still argue that he should be considered for sainthood. In minor league, we had this really old school coach who would berate any kid who made a mistake. “What’s the matter?! You got a hole in your glove?!” was a classic mantra if anyone missed a grounder. He was brutal but hilarious. My sister Stacy could hit the shit out of the ball, and our team, the Cubs, actually won the championship that year. I was so excited as it was the first trophy I ever won. It’s probably still at my parents’ house somewhere.

A few years later, my friends and I all played Little League baseball at Marion Park, representing various small town civic organizations like Kiwanis, Moose, the Lions Club, and the VFW. For many of us, this was our first time playing a legit organized sport with a designated season, intense coaches, uniforms, daily practices, and games a few nights per week. I’d love to know how many hundreds of hours I spent on that baseball field, playing my heart out and trying to make my coaches proud. Wins, losses, and life lessons happened on those fields. I made friends, got yelled at, felt like I made my parents proud, laughed, cried, fought, and grew up a bit.

When I was in elementary and middle school, we would take field trips to Marion Park in the spring. This was always an amazing time where my friends and I would fool around, make up games, accidentally hit line drives directly into my friend Jenny’s face from about 10 feet away, and die laughing when Mr. Vivio gave his culinary opinion on grilled hot dogs by stating, “I hope they burn those fuckers.”

In seventh and eighth grade, we used the outfield of one of the baseball fields for Pop Warner football practice in the fall. For my friends and me, this was our first time getting to play full contact football. Our practices were definitely old school with lots of hitting and doing drills that are now banned. We didn’t care. We loved our coaches and being out there with our friends, sweating, sometimes freezing, and working towards a common goal. This field now has a new scoreboard that is dedicated to Mike Maule, a man who will definitely get his own post in the future. Mike wasn’t a teacher at the school, but he gave an incredible amount to the community by coaching Little League baseball, Pop Warner football, and middle school basketball. Mike passed away a few years ago, and seeing his name up on that scoreboard choked me up big time. He was an amazing man who spent a ton of time helping me develop and improve in life.

My buddy Hammer’s dad Mike hosted a classic car and bike show out at Marion Park that was just amazing. There were so many people there with beautiful old school muscle cars and badass Harley-Davidson motorcycles. It felt like a big event in our small town and I give Mike a ton of credit for making the effort to organize it. Because he’s a great guy, Mike let my buddy Hammer and me help out with the judging for the best car in the show. We were young kids and I certainly didn’t know shit about cars, but Hammer and I tried to do our best. There were two clear favorites in the running, a classic black 1968 Camaro and what I think was a late-50’s Bel Air that was all red and white with a Coca-Cola theme. I could be way wrong on the make and model of the Coke car, but it was something like that. The Camaro owner was this real cocky guy who had pictures of his car with all the car show trophies he had won over the years while the Coke car owner was this nice quiet guy who just seemed happy to be there hanging out and enjoying the atmosphere. Hammer and I gave the trophy to the Camaro, but later that day, out of nowhere, Hammer said, “We should’ve given it to the Coke guy.” You were right, Buddy. You were right.

There are too many other Marion Park memories to count including meetings girls out there at night when my friends and I first discovered that girls were awesome could hold a spell over us, random tennis outings, and summer adult league soccer during our college years. Marion Park has changed a little bit over the years, but it has also stayed remarkably the same. I think the same could be said about my old hometown and the people who live there, and that’s just fine.

Sparky’s Yard

From 2007-2010, I taught high school math and physics out in Buckeye, Arizona, a far western suburb of Phoenix. One morning the science department head at my high school forwarded us an e-mail about a summer masters degree program at Arizona State University. The program was specifically designed for teachers and could be completed over the course of three summers. This all sounded well and good to me so I started navigating my way through the application process and trying to figure out how I would pay for these classes on my meager first-year teacher salary.

As the summer of 2008 approached, I began thinking of how long and miserable the commute would be from where I lived in Goodyear to ASU’s main campus in Tempe. I really didn’t want to make that drive all summer long. Fortunately, for those of us entering the program, this saintly woman from ASU named Jane Jackson had arranged a block of cheap apartments for us to rent just for the summer months. I think I paid $800 for the eight weeks I lived in Tempe, and it was worth every penny. The apartments that first summer were right on University Avenue, about a mile from the physical science building where I would be spending my days.

Obviously one of my top concerns for the summer was where I was going to train, but it all worked out better than I could have ever hoped. These summers at ASU ended up being an incredible time for my training. ASU had a massive student gym complex with everything I needed to lift, run, and play racquetball, my primary fitness activities back then. The inside of the gym was well-kept and always had the air conditioning cranked, but it was this other section of the gym that I really fell in love with. I have no idea if it’s still there anymore, but there was this fenced-in outdoor section that they called, “Sparky’s Yard.” Sparky is the sun-devil mascot of ASU and yard is, I guess, the prison term for an outdoor recreation area. There was a translucent green tarp roof in the very unlikely event that it rained. The gym opened at 6:00 AM and class started at 8:00 AM, so I had plenty of time to get to the gym when they opened and get after it in the morning. Sparky’s Yard had a big heavy squat rack with plate storage and a pull-up bar, a deadlift platform, benches, dumbbells, a leg press, and a cable jungle gym tower station. I basically had Sparky’s Yard to myself every morning. It was heaven. Imagine getting to start your day surrounded by a pile of weights outside in the 95 F dry desert heat with the sun making its way up high in the sky.

I really wish I had some pictures of Sparky’s Yard, but I didn’t even have a smartphone in 2008. I had some flip phone that took really crappy pictures. In retrospect, I trained way too much back then, but I was 24 years old and had boundless energy. Some days I would start and end my morning lifting session with a 5k, so I would run a 10k and lift before going to class at 8:00 AM. Other days I would just lift in the morning and then go for a run during our class lunch break. Memories of the heat during these lunchtime runs are still with me. It was often 110+ F as I made laps around the red clay multipurpose field track that sat right outside the student gym. Yes, it’s a dry heat, but 110 is 110. I loved putting my headphones in, getting into that zone, and just feeling that incredible heat. One time I was running across the street and almost got hit by a car because I was listening to “Gold Digger” by Kanye West and I was just so in the moment I had quit paying attention to my surroundings.

I remember coming out of my apartment early one morning and thinking that it felt cool outside because it was only 90 F at 5:45 AM. Funny how your perspective changes. On that particular morning, I ran over to and up A Mountain by the football stadium. I still remember what a beautiful moment it was when I got to the top, looking down to the football stadium and out on the Salt River. That evening I went out for some beers with my roommate Al and his dad who was in town visiting from Chicago. I mentioned my morning run and his dad said, “That’s some Walter Payton shit.” While I’m certainly not Walter Payton, it was still a cool way of describing how I felt when I got to the top. I still feel that excitement, elation, and hunger for life when I’m at the end of a hard training session. The day may come when I’m too old and broken down to get into that zone. I will yearn for this hard training, for a time when my mind and soul could push my body to tackle a challenge and give all I had on that day. This life is going by way too fast, but I’m still in the fight. Still pushing hard. Onward and upward.

ASU’s Sun Devil Stadium with A Mountain in the background.

The Seniors

As I’ve mentioned before, I was first allowed to venture into my high school’s weight room during the spring of my eighth grade year. This was a huge moment for me, and I remember being super nervous and excited. I was always beanpole skinny, and by the end of eighth grade I was probably 6’1” and maybe 150 pounds. Sure I had been playing sports my whole life, but lifting weights and barbell training was very new to me and my baseline strength was minimal.

There are huge differences between a 13 year old kid and a 17-18 year old senior in high school. All of the seniors seemed so big, strong, and jacked and there names were on all the weight room boards showing that they had squatted 400, benched 300, cleaned 250, etc. It seemed like they were all squatting three or four plates and benching and power cleaning at least 275. These were the guys we watched play varsity football on Saturday afternoons in the fall. They were like gods to us.

One day my freshman year I walked into the weight room and saw one of the senior guys doing pull-ups on the bar at the top of one of the squat racks. He was alternating reps between getting his chin over the bar to the front with pulling himself up to the back of his neck, and he was making his 10 rep set look damn easy. Two of the outstanding female athletes at the school were in another rack squatting 225 for reps. I knew that, in more ways than one, I did not look that good squatting 225. The school’s star running back was against the wall stretching out, getting ready for a squat session that would include multiple sets of 405 and above. An amazingly stout and rugged middle linebacker was doing power cleans with 275, snapping the weight up to his chest like it was an empty barbell. A pair of brothers who were both savage wrestlers were blasting an arm workout using an “I go, you go,” format. I distinctly remember thinking that one of them looked exactly like a caveman except he was lifting dumbbells instead of huge rocks or freshly killed mastodon carcasses. Another senior guy, a linebacker and wrestler who was known as a bit of a loose cannon, was benching on the other side of the weight room. This guy was known for screaming obscenities when executing a heavy lift. You’d be in the middle of a set or spotting your training partner and you’d hear this guy scream, “MOTHERFUCKING COCKSUCKER!” Of course everyone would laugh and a coach might yell at us for the foul language, but nobody really cared.

Mr. Madigan was, fittingly, the ringleader of all this chaos. He would walk around the weight room wearing an old leather weight belt and nodding his head to AC/DC’s “The Jack" and screaming at people to get after it. When someone was attempting a personal record or going for a lift to get their name on one of the boards, Mr. Madigan would yell, “New recorrrrrrrrrrd!” and everyone would gather around to watch the lifter. This was a gut check for a young lifter like myself because I certainly didn’t want to screw up, miss a lift, or look stupid in front of the senior guys and girls. Mr. Madigan deserves his own blog post on here, but I may have to wait a little bit until he retires from teaching. For now, I’ll just say he was crazy, but he also motivated the hell out of me, got me started in learning physics, and played a huge role in getting me to where I am today. His “one for Iron Mountain” mantra still rings in my ears when I’m at the end of a tough set trying to eek out one more rep. It’s worth noting that AC/DC Live was the only CD in the corner radio boombox for about five years until my buddy Poike made a mixed CD featuring Bon Jovi, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Black Sabbath, and, of course, AC/DC.

No matter how old I get or how many different lifters or gyms I come across, those seniors from my high school will always seem Herculean in stature and cooler than Fonzi. They are frozen in time in what for many was surely their peak jacked-ness. Their lifting and attitudes inspired my friends and me to push ourselves and get better. The best part is that in some ways, they still inspire me to keep improving so that one day I might be as big, strong, jacked, and cool as they were back in the late ‘90s.

You Keep F!@#ing Up

Why do you keep doing this? You’re fucking up and you know it. Like everything else, this comes down to discipline. No one has a gun to your head. You make the decision to succeed or fail. You are accountable for your actions. How can you be so disciplined in some areas of your life and so shitty in others? What’s up with that?

It doesn’t add value to your life.

It’s never an improvement but always a detriment.

It never adds but always subtracts.

It never makes you happy but always sad.

You waste time on this but can’t make time for things that are actually important.

Nobody can do it for you. It’s all on you.

You try and fail. Try and fail. But are you really trying? Really?! You try at a lot of other stuff and succeed. Why is this different?

You succeed at things that are important to you. This shouldn’t be any different.

Buckle down.

Get tough.

Make a decision.

Man the fuck up.

Quit being a soft-ass.

Suck it up, Buttercup.

Quit feeling sorry for yourself.

FIX YOURSELF.

A New Challenge

At the end of January 2021, a few months shy of my 37th birthday, I went to my first ever Brazilian Jiu Jitsu (BJJ) class. Walking into the gym at 0515 on a Wednesday morning, I was super nervous and had no idea what to expect. Sure, I had done some research on my own and talked to a couple BJJ practitioners beforehand, but there is still that initial anxiety about being the new guy, fitting in, and obviously being the least skilled/knowledgeable person in the room. Since I have no martial arts or even wrestling background, this was a brand new activity for me, a daunting endeavor that would undoubtedly challenge me both physically and mentally.

When I was in high school, I always wanted to give wrestling a shot. The sport just looked very physical and raw, and part of me was in awe of the guys who wrestled in my school. I think part of me just wanted to know if I could survive with that crew. But alas, wrestling was not in the cards for me. Being 6’6” at a small school where an athletic body couldn’t be wasted on the mere whims of a kid, my destiny was to play basketball during the long months of an Upper Peninsula winter. Most of the wrestlers at my school were obvious physical beasts, and some (most) you might say had a couple screws loose. Since basketball and wrestling were both winter sports that practiced right after school, we all shared a locker room. No one had to tell me to keep my mouth shut around the wrestlers or the wrestling coach Mr. Madigan. After surviving a typical brutal practice, the wrestlers didn’t seem to be in a joking around, jocular, ball-busting kind of mood. They looked like they had gotten run over by a bus after a two-hour long barroom brawl. If one of the wrestlers decided to maul one of us basketball players, there wouldn’t have been much we could do about it. Sure, we could tell Mr. Madigan after the fact, but he’d probably laugh and put you in a headlock of his own. The wrestlers all walked the halls of the high school with that swagger that comes from knowing that they could kick the ass of anyone dumb enough to step up and challenge them. A group of them wore t-shirts that read:

“Basketball: A game played by boys and girls.

Wrestling: A war between two men.”

Imagine some dude walking into school with that shirt in 2021. He’d probably be expelled and charged with a hate crime. Back then, around 2000, those guys were tough and they knew it and they didn’t give one shit about someone’s feelings or safe space.

My first day of BJJ was a lot of fun even though my lack of skills and experience were painfully obvious. At one point I had a guy on top of me pulling on my arm and smashing my head into the mat as I struggled with all my might to get up and out of the hold (I was unsuccessful). Reflecting on this new experience after class, I couldn’t help but thinking how much I enjoyed and appreciated the struggle. In that moment, my brain was not distracted by all the BS of everyday life. I wasn’t worried about making spreadsheets or my next work travel trip or taking my truck in for maintenance. All I could think about was surviving. Nothing more. Nothing less. There is something beautiful in that. For many, this world and this life have gotten way too easy. There are no real hardships and the aim of everything in our daily lives is to make things gentler, softer, and more comfortable. I know plenty of folks do still have legitimate struggles, but many of us do not.

It’s so important to find activities that will test, challenge, and make us face the reality that maybe we aren’t the best at everything. It’s okay to not know how to do something, and things like jiu jitsu and other competitive activities can bring a person face-to-face with their shortcomings. As I’ve gotten older, I have realized that I did not lose enough as a kid. There were some harsh realities of competition in the world that just did not occur to me in my little youthful bubble. It took me a while to learn this fact, and even longer to face it in a way where I was risking getting beat. There is value, honor, and lessons to be learned in facing a challenge head on, even, or maybe especially, if there is a good chance you will lose. That opponent, person, challenge, task, whatever, might just be better than you. Face it. Own it. Enjoy it. Get better.

I’m Not Very Tough

As a nuclear power plant inspector, I do a lot of traveling to various facilities, and refueling outages are usually good times to observe lots of different activities and work that is outside of the normal routine. When a plant is shutdown for an outage, it gives me the opportunity to go into lots of different parts of the plant and observe activities to ensure that everything is safe and proper procedures are being followed. It’s kind of a weird position because everyone on site is, for the most part, nice and professional to me, even though they probably can’t stand the sight of me because of the job I have to do and the authority inspectors have to raise hell when we see violations. My approach is to always be polite, build rapport, and, most of all, don’t be a dick. It turns out this approach pretty much serves me well in all areas of my life.

Last week was kind of a long week on the road with lots of time spent dressed in protective clothing (PCs) and crawling around containment and other normally off-limit areas of the plant. My coworker Harry was the senior inspector, and he and I ventured into the low pressure condenser on Wednesday afternoon. Once we both climbed a ladder and then crawled on our stomachs to get under some scaffolding, pipes, and structural barriers, we were officially inside the condenser. Harry summarized it perfectly by saying, “Well, welcome to Dante’s Inferno.” This place was nuts. Cramped, loud, metal pipes everywhere, and open spots on the floor that invited a person to fall a very long way into darkness. Harry and I did lots of crawling around on our knees and stomachs while also wearing fall protection harnesses, staying clipped onto something at all times to make sure we didn’t plummet to our death. We were in the condenser for about an hour, and it only took me a few minutes to realize that I’m not very tough. Do you know who is tough? The men and women who were in their welding, grinding, and sweating their asses off for a full eight or twelve hour shift. Those people are tough. They worked circles around me that day, and they had already been doing it for two weeks straight. Not only are their jobs very physically demanding and in an extremely unforgiving environment, but they also require great skill and craftsmanship.

I have a ton of respect for anyone who works hard and earns an honest living. Too much of my work time is spent in front of a computer and not out in the world doing things. It’s a breeding ground for softness that I’m trying to combat by maintaining perspective, training hard, and taking on new challenges like Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. More on this later…

A Weak Nobody’s Conjugate Training Method

As my training log indicates, I did some Conjugate (sometimes referred to as Westside) training the past few months. Conjugate training is a ton of fun and forces me to get out of my comfort zone on a variety of lifts and focus on weak points (although most days I feel everything on me is pretty weak). I’m not an expert on Conjugate and I’ve never stepped foot in Westside Barbell. I have read just about all of Louie Simmons’s books and have tried to watch and learn from his videos and DVDs. Certainly this is no substitute for training at Westside, but I came to grips with the fact that I’m not Chuck Vogelpohl a long time ago.

Nothing that I write here is new, groundbreaking, or hasn’t been said before. This is just an attempt to lay out how I run the program in plain terms. Hopefully someone will find it useful. The best resource that I’ve personally come across on Conjugate training is, “The Vault” e-book from Dave Tate at EliteFTS. Dave trained at Westside for a decade and has dedicated his life to giving back to the world of powerlifting. “The Vault” does a masterful job of detailing Conjugate training and years of hard-earned wisdom from Dave Tate. Let’s get started on my take.

Methods

Max Effort

The goal here is simple: Handle some relatively heavy weight and strain. There is just no substitute for loading up a heavy bar, getting under it, or getting it in your hands, and fighting to lift it. Conjugate training allows you to perform max effort work every single week with a different week which keeps training fresh, interesting, challenging, and fun.

Pick one major lift work up to a 1, 3, or 5 rep max. Every week I change the exercise, rotating through a variation of good mornings, squats, and deadlifts. The exercise can also be modified by using a different bar and adding bands and/or chains which offers a ton of variety.

Dynamic Effort

The goal here is to move a relatively lighter weight as fast as possible, putting maximum force into the bar with each rep. Make no mistake, the weights may be lighter but this is not a “light day.” Dynamic effort days, sometimes called, “speed days,” progress through a three-week wave, with goal weights on each respective week being 50%, 55%, 60% plus 25% of band tension added. We’re talking percentages of a one rep max in whatever movement you’re doing that day. In my experience, these percentages are a ballpark estimate and can vary a bit from person to person. I’ve seen some articles related to Conjugate training that give lower (40-50%) and higher (60-70%) for the three weeks. More importantly than the exact percentage is the speed at which you can move the bar. These sets should be fast and explosive, basically the complete opposite of a slow grind like on max effort days. Bands are ideal here because they provide an overspeed eccentric, pulling you down faster than just gravity working on the weight. They also allow you to push throughout the entire range of motion without naturally slowing down at the top to prevent the bar from going airborne. When I’m at the bottom of a lift using bands, I always think to myself that I need to, “out-run,” the bands, meaning that I need to come out of the bottom as hard and fast as possible. I need to get into the bands quickly, because I know that if I go too slow, they’ll win and I’ll get stapled.

Repetition

The repetition piece of this is just a fancy way to think about typical bro/bodybuilding movements. After your main lift is done for the day, either your max effort or dynamic effort work, pick a few isolation exercises and hit some higher rep sets. If I’m being honest, this is where I slack the most. My training always focuses more on movements rather than muscle groups, so repetition sets don’t really seem to do much for me. I’d rather hit a variation of one of the main movements for sets of five to eight reps or get in some kettlebell work to finish off the workout. Sometimes I’ll throw in some curls or triceps extensions at the end for the hell of it, but I could take it or leave it.

Days of the Week

• Monday - Max Effort Lower Body - Remember, the goal here is to handle some relatively heavy weight and strain. Some examples include:

  • Good Mornings with cambered bar or safety squat bar - Out of the rack or from the bottom up. These can be done with a straight bar too, but it can really feel like shit on the shoulders. I typically don’t do a max single with good mornings, instead opting for a 3 or 5 rep max.

  • Squats or Box Squats with cambered bar, safety squat bar or straight bar.

  • Deadlifts - Sumo, deficit, block pulls, snatch grip, trap bar.

• Wednesday - Max Effort Upper Body - Same rules and rationale as Monday. Sample lifts include:

  • Bench or incline bench press with neutral grip bar, straight bar, or axle.

  • Pin press with neutral grip bar, straight bar, or axle.

  • Floor press with neutral grip bar, straight bar, or axle.

  • Overhead press or push press with neutral grip bar, straight bar, or axle

• Friday - Dynamic Effort Lower Body - Remember, this is a fast/explosive day, not a light day. Sample lifts and sets x reps schemes are below. Hitting 15-25 total reps is a good goal.

  • Box squats with safety squat bar, cambered bar, or straight bar with bands and/or chains. Bands tend to work best here. After each three-week wave, feel free to switch bars, box height, band tension, weight, sets x reps scheme, rest periods, or whatever feels best. Rest periods are kept to 45-90 seconds between sets, so this goes fast and should get your heart rate up. For sets x reps, I like to work with 12 x 2, 8 x 3, and 5 x 5. You can change these as you progress through each wave and the weight gets heavier. For example:

    • Week 1: 12 x 2

    • Week 2: 10 x 2

    • Week 3: 8 x 2

    or

    • Week 1: 8 x 3

    • Week 2: 6 x 3

    • Week 3: 5 x 3

    or

    • Week 1: 5 x 5

    • Week 2: 4 x 5

    • Week 3: 3 x 5

  • Deadlifts - Sumo or conventional with bands and/or chains. For these I like to do 15 - 25 singles with 20 - 30 seconds of rest, but there’s nothing wrong with doing some doubles or triples. I often do either deadlifts or kettlebells in addition to dynamic effort box squats.

  • Kettlebell Work - Kettlebells are a perfect complement to dynamic effort day. Swings, cleans, snatches, you can’t go wrong. Have fun with it.

• Sunday - Dynamic Effort Upper Body - Same rules and rationale as Friday.

  • Bench with straight bar or neutral grip bar with bands and/or chains. Play around with the sets and reps just like on Friday.

This is my practical approach to Conjugate training four days per week. Obviously adding in other stuff will have an effect on recovery, but I also do a ton of walking, hiking, and other light cardio throughout the week. Don’t be afraid to jump right into Conjugate training. It may take some time and effort to figure out what works best for you, but that’s part of the fun.

2020 Book List

Reading has always been a passion of mine, and I’ve been keeping track of the books I’ve read for the past few years. In 2020, I really got on a mission and completed 46 books. Despite all the crappiness of 2020, I am grateful to have been able to work at home and not have to worry about a morning and afternoon commute. This extra time normally spent commuting paired with a determination to not waste time on things that rot my brain (read: social media) provided me with lots of extra time to get lost in books. The events of this past year provided lots of motivation to want to escape reality, and the amount of fiction that I read in 2020 reflects that.

My 2020 book list also conveys my obsession with westerns and the history of the American west. Some of these books are from a list of, “21 Western Novels Every Man Should Read,” provided by The Art of Manliness. These will be denoted with a, “AoM,” throughout the list. I plan on finishing the rest of the AoM books in 2021.

It should also be noted that I typically have a book on my Kindle and an actual physical book going at the same time. My Kindle is primarily used when I am reading in bed at night before falling asleep. It’s a great tool that allows me to read without having other lights on and disturbing Cali. The downside is that I always seem to get more out of a book when it is an actual physical copy. There is something about the touch of the pages and the ease with which I can go back and look something up that makes it a better experience and allows me to retain more of a connection to the book. On the list below, I’ll denote which books were on my Kindle and may be a bit underrated as a result.

I realize that telling everyone how many books I read can come across as super douchey. That’s not my intention at all. I simply want to share these titles and a sentence or two about each one in the hope that maybe others will check out these books and get pleasure from them as well.

Okay, here we go.

1. “The Barbell Prescription” by Jonathan M. Sullivan and Andy Baker - Great book about the importance of strength training for everyone, especially those over 50 years of age. It’s literally a matter of life and death.

2. “The Deer Camp” by Dean Kuipers - Very enjoyable book about a Michigan family’s hunting camp and how the outdoors can bring people together. Parts of it hit home for me because I don’t see my family nearly enough these days and we own a beautiful hunting camp in the north woods.

3. “Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World” by Jack Weatherford - Kindle - Great book that I’ll need to revisit at some point. The historical traditions, values, and war-making of these people were incredible.

4. “Hillbilly Elegy” by J.D. Vance - Excellent book about hardship, poverty, overcoming odds, and eventual triumph. It made me grateful for the stable home in which I was raised.

5. “The Complete Keys to Progress” by John McCallum - This is a collection of essays by an old school lifting writer. There are some gems in here, but many were repetitive and impractical.

6. “Easy Strength” by Dan John - Like all of Dan John’s books, this was part training, part life coaching, part sage wisdom that applies to everyone. Highly recommend anything by Dan John.

7. “Attempts: Essays on Fitness, Health, Longevity, and Easy Strength” by Dan John - This was probably my least favorite Dan John book, but it was still worth my time. It was mostly a collection of essays from past works, so not much was new to me.

8. “PT-109” by William Doyle - Kindle - Now this book was an eye opener. I always thought of JFK as this kind of rich pretty boy who was just born into privilege and wasn’t much of a real man. “PT-109” outlines JFK’s role in World War II and the trials and tribulations he faced. Turns out he was a true badass who I would want next to me when the going got tough.

9. “Your Brain on Porn” - Kindle - This is a very important book that should be required reading for every young man. The book gives an excellent description of how porn affects the brain and the negativity that comes with it.

10. “Deadwood” by Pete Dexter - Kindle - I loved this book, and I think any fan of the HBO series of the same name would also. I will read this one again.

11. “At Night She Cries While He Rides His Steed” by Ross Patterson - Wildly satirical book about a rowdy cowboy in the old west. Absolutely hilarious and non-PC.

12. “Blood and Thunder” by Hampton Sides - Perhaps the best non-fiction book I have ever read. If you’re into the history of the American west, check this out.

13. “The Informant” by Kurt Eichenwald - Kindle - This was a real page-turner that held my attention. It was a long book, but it didn’t feel that way.

14. “The Last Book on the Left” by Ben Kissel, Marcus Parks, and Henry Zebrowski - This is a book about serial killers done by the guys from my favorite serial killer podcast, The Last Podcast on the Left. It’s hard to imagine a book about serial killers being hilarious, but the guys pulled it off.

15. “Robbers’ Roost” by Zane Grey - Kindle - Classic western. Easy read and a great mental escape. My one issue is that Zane Grey sometimes spends so much time describing a setting that it gets very boring.

16. “Bust Hell Wide Open: The Life of Nathan Bedford Forrest” by Samuel W. Mitcham Jr. - This was a good book, but some parts were hard to get through. The details of the battles and what regiment was coming from where had me almost falling asleep at times. Good portrait of a Confederate general though.

17. “When Darkness Falls, He Doesn’t Catch It” by Ross Patterson - The hilarious sequel to #11. More raunchiness and inappropriateness. Good times.

18. “The Summer I Died” by Ryan C. Thomas - Kindle - This was a work of fiction, but the plot was plausible and pretty terrifying. Lots of gore if you’re into that sort of thing. It kept me interested.

19. “Born to Bleed” by Ryan C. Thomas - Kindle - I started reading #18 not realizing it was book 1/3 in a trilogy. “Born to Bleed” was okay, but the plot got a little ridiculous and the author included some weird things that just didn’t fit. For example, it was specifically mentioned that the perpetrators in the book were politically right-wing. It had nothing to do with the plot but I guess somehow made them naturally more scary??? I don’t really know. I actually started the third book in the series but it was awful and I didn’t finish it.

20. “American Desperado” by Jon Roberts - Super interesting and entertaining book. I highly recommend it if for no other reason than the hilarious story about O.J. Simpson being too much of a party animal even for international cocaine/drug kingpins.

21. “Wild Bill” by Tom Clavin - Tom Clavin is my boy. He writes lots of non-fiction books about the west. This one did not disappoint.

22. “Under the Black Hat” by Jim Ross - Kindle - This is Good Ol’ J.R.’s second book. If you were ever a fan of pro wrestling, you should enjoy “Slobberknocker” and this one.

23. “Shane” by Jack Schaefer - AoM - Kindle - Excellent, easy read. An old teacher of mine, Mr. Lynch, once told us, “My brother says that, ‘Shane,’ is the greatest western movie of all time.”

24. “The Ox-Bow Incident” by William Van Tilburg Clark - AoM - Kindle - Kind of slow, but gets into the psyche of vigilantism on the frontier. I enjoyed it well enough.

25. “1776” by David McCullough - Awesome book about the Revolutionary War and our country’s early history.

26. “Little Big Man” by Thomas Berger - AoM - Kindle - The awesomeness of this book surprised me. It’s kind of like a satirical Forrest Gump journey of a guy making his way through major historical moments in the American west. There is also a lot of history and education about Native American customs and culture. I will read this one again.

27. “Runnin’ with the Devil” by Noel Monk - Classic stories about a wild rock and roll band. Very entertaining.

28. “Van Halen Rising” by Greg Renoff - See #27 above. I borrowed both of these books about Van Halen from a neighbor.

29. “The Eighth Wonder of the World” by Bertrand Hebert and Pat Laprade - This book about Andre the Giant was okay, but I’ll admit that some parts were super boring and I wanted to stop reading.

30. “Butcher’s Crossing” by John Williams - AoM - Kindle - Good book that shows some of the real hardships of frontier life.

31. “Valley Forge” by Bob Drury and Tom Clavin - I frequently go hiking at Valley Forge so reading some of the history behind the park was great. It’s a miracle our country ever won independence from England.

32. “Salt: A World History” by Mark Kurlansky - I remember one of my Navy buddies reading this several years ago and I thought it was silly as hell. It turned out to be a really good book with plenty of interesting world history. The author is a food writer so some of the recipe stuff that he included got old, but it was easy enough to breeze past those parts.

33. “Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee” by Dee Brown - Kindle - This book is about the countless ways the U.S. government screwed over the Native Americans. It’s absolutely tragic. I need to revisit this again in the future.

34. “Skeleton Crew” by Stephen King - I always go on a Stephen King kick around Halloween and this year was no different. Good collection of short stories.

35. “Blackout” by Candace Owens - Excellent book with some uncomfortable facts and truths. Personally, I think Candace is a brilliant political commentator. I’ll leave it at that.

36. “Thinner” by Stephen King - I remember watching this movie at a friend’s house like 20 years ago. The movie was spooky and the book was even better. I really enjoyed this one.

37. “I’ve Got My Eyes On You” by Mary Higgins Clark - Kindle - I wanted a scary book by someone other than Stephen King. This book was fine. Very easy read.

38. “Gray Mountain” by John Grisham - Kindle - One of the best Grisham books I’ve read. This book really paints a picture of the struggles of poor rural folks in coal country and Appalachia.

39. “In Cold Blood” by Truman Capote - Kindle - Awesome true crime book. Highly recommend.

40. “The Tommyknockers” by Stephen King - You know how these random monoliths keep popping up in out of the way places? That’s kind of the plot of this book with the addition of the shit hitting the fan. I enjoyed it.

41. “Yeah Buddy!” by Ronnie Coleman - Kindle - This book was about what I expected. You might enjoy this if you’re into pro bodybuilding. If not, you might be left wondering why no one proofread this book before it went to publication.

42. “Lonesome Dove” by Larry McMurtry - There are not enough superlatives in existence to describe how I feel about this book. I’ve watched the miniseries countless times and I still loved every page.

43. “A Glimpse in the Rearview” by Dave Draper - Kindle - Meh, this was okay but nothing great. Some interesting west coast early bodybuilding stories.

44. “Centennial” by James A. Michener - If you’re looking for a 1,000+ page historical fiction book based around Colorado, look no further. I really enjoyed this book, although the chapter about all the geological stuff kind of put me to sleep. Once I got past that though, it was a real page turner.

45. “About Three Bricks Shy of a Load” by Roy Blount Jr. - Kindle - This book is about the 1973 Pittsburgh Steelers. It had some funny stories, but wasn’t as good as I thought it would be.

46. “Hondo” by Louis L’Amour - AoM - Classic western with a bit of a love story. It was worth my time.

Get Tough

When I was in eighth grade, 1996-1997, we had enough kids go out for the basketball team that the school decided to split us into two teams so that more kids could participate and practice their skills. No, this wasn’t about giving out participation trophies or anything like that. The goal was to have a bigger, more experienced pool of players to draw from when we started high school the following year.

I was placed on the Blue team, which meant my coaches were Mike Maule and Dante Mendina. Mike was a local businessman who had coached Little League baseball and other youth sports for years while Dante was the dad of my best buddy, Tony. Mike and Dante were both incredibly good to us kids, and I always wanted to play hard and make them proud.

There were some good victories and hilarious moments during that season, but one of the funniest things happened at the Pizza Hut party Mike and Dante had for us after we got knocked out of the playoffs. When we were ordering pizza, our teammate Jim let it slip that he wanted a plain cheese pizza. Well, this idea was appalling to a rugged guy like Mike, who half-jokingly exclaimed loud enough for the whole restaurant to hear, “Get tough! Order sausage!” My teammates and I all burst into laughter and knew that we had a quote that we would use on each other for years to come. Here we are at the end of 2020, and I could still text that line to my friends and it would elicit a laugh and probably a few other good Mike quotes from that season.

In today’s world, some may call this toxic masculinity, but I am grateful that I had some really strong male role models in my life during my formidable adolescent years. Now, I’m not saying that I’m some sort of tough guy or that a good measure of one’s manhood or worth is whether or not you order sausage pizza. I’m saying that it was good for me to be surrounded by friends and coaches who always drove me to be a little bit tougher. Being a part of a group or team meant I had other people counting on me, and sometimes I had to do things I didn’t necessarily feel like doing at the time. It didn’t matter if I felt a little sick or didn’t feel like practicing or didn’t want to brave the cold during football season. I had to answer the bell, be there for my teammates and coaches, and, in short, get tough.

Perhaps this is why I’m so fascinated with the history of the American West frontier. You know what I’m talking about…cowboys, Native Americans, mountain men, horses, buffalo, cattle, boom towns, gold rushes, saloons, whiskey, whores, Manifest Destiny, and the list goes on. One of the reasons I’m so captivated by this bit of history is the toughness of the people. Hardship was the norm, and there were no expectations for comfort, safety, or easy living.

People thought nothing of traveling long distances on foot or horseback.

Got shot? Guess I’ll get a limb amputated and carry on.

Spouse took off on some adventure into the unknown? Hope he or she isn’t dead and makes it back here at some point.

Even with the craziness of 2020, for many, myself included, life is way too easy. People don’t expect to ever have to endure any kind of pain or discomfort. There is a pill for everything and plenty of excuses for our own failings and shortcomings. This does not result in tough people.

Often times, pain, within reason, indicates growth and betterment, and the hard path is the one that will produce the most rewarding and lasting results. Rather than shying away from the discomfort of growth and improvement, we must embrace the feelings of uncertainty and savor the process of healing, learning, and/or expanding our talents. It may be something you’ve been putting off like starting to eat healthy or exercise more frequently. These can certainly be daunting tasks that yank you out of your comfort zone, but the long term effects will change you for the better. There will be times where you feel hungry or wake up sore or have to push through a mental barrier. It’s okay to not look forward to these times and be uncomfortable when you’re faced with the decision to press on toward your goal. Every time you choose the right path you will be getting better, stronger, and tougher.

I Worry…

I come from a long line of worriers, and it’s a habit I adopted very early on in life. As a kid, I worried about anything and everything: falling sick with some kind of terminal disease, losing a family member, getting kidnapped, our family’s house burning down, screwing up and causing my high school teams to lose a seemingly all-important football or basketball game, failing in school, getting poisoned by the cleaning agents my mom used around the house, pesticides on food. You name it, I worried about it, all while keeping my thoughts and anxiety to myself and subconsciously picking my fingernails until they were nothing more than little stubs. Of course now, many of these worries seem so silly, the machinations of the mind of an imaginative kid, but they were constantly on my mind, eating away at me and eroding my energy.

But here’s the problem.

I still worry. It’s just that as an adult, my list of worries has changed, and I don’t know how to turn it off. Below is a frequent interaction between Cali and me while we are relaxing on the couch in the evening:

Me: (thinking about something and subconsciously picking my nails)
Cali: Why are you picking?
Me: Oh, I was just thinking about something.

Cali often knows me better than I know myself, and she can always tell when something is on my mind or bothering me.

This past year has been wrought with anxiety for many people worldwide. Government lockdowns, COVID, elections, racial tensions, unemployment, riots, the future of our country, and the constant, in your face nature of social media have made our country a hypersensitive and incredibly divided powder keg. Our country has two major political parties, and so many people feel like they’re on one side or the other. Two people could agree on 99 things, but if there is one nuanced disagreement on the subtle gray area of one inconsequential topic, it’s, “Well you’re on that side and I’m on this side so I hate you now.” It’s heartbreaking to see so much disagreement and strife among people.

I don’t like this at all, and I worry about all of it. Over the past year, this constant worrying and anxiety has crept in and caused me to forget about the importance of enjoying life. Living in fear is not living at all, and that’s where I’ve been stuck for some time now. Part of it is the COVID lockdowns and working at home nearly 100% of the time. Whenever I do get a chance to get out of the house and travel for work, it’s actually very refreshing. Interacting with people out in the world is a good reminder that what’s portrayed on the news is far different than the very normal and respectful human interactions that take place every day all over the country.

It’s time to take ownership of my anxiety and focus all of the mental energy I expend worrying about things I cannot control towards something productive. Years ago I read some great books on these topics, including Mark Manson’s “The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F***,” Jocko Willink’s “Extreme Ownership,” and Don Miguel Ruiz’s “The Four Agreements.” Perhaps it’s time to brush up on the themes in these books and start living a life of action rather than a life of worry. There are countless things that are out of my control, but how I feel about them is completely up to me. Like jealousy, anger, bitterness, and resentment, worrying actually works the opposite of how we want it to work. Worrying does not help the situation, and it only negatively affects the person doing the worrying. Nothing useful, beneficial, or productive comes from the act of worrying.

Being positive is a choice, and it’s time for me to choose the right path every single day. Going forward, I am going to stay positive, love my fellow man, and focus my attention on what is in front of me and what I can control.

Find a Way to Train

The first weekend in March 2020, I flew to Wichita Falls, Texas, for a Starting Strength seminar. As I sat at the Dallas airport waiting for my flight back to Philadelphia, I quietly laughed to myself at how ridiculous it was that people were wearing masks at the airport. There had been some rumblings in the news about COVID, but most of the population didn’t seem too concerned about things just yet. Little did I know that about ten days later, the Pennsylvania governor would order a pseudo-lockdown, make masks required in most public places, and force the closure of gyms and other businesses that the almighty government decided were, “non-essential.”

Life is tough for a lot of folks right now. People have lost their livelihoods, had their businesses closed, been forced to move, missed meals and housing payments, lost friends and loved ones, and just had what feels like one kick after another during the past seven months. It’s not hard to understand that for many, training is way down the priority list. For those of you that find yourselves in a very difficult and stressful life situation, training might be the one thing that you can control. You can decide to relieve some of that stress through hard training and activities. You can choose to stay sharp and not let situational uncertainties sap you of all of your mental and physical well-being. You can maintain a high fitness standard and not let yourself stray from the path.

But my gym is closed.

Sounds like the perfect time to get primal with your training. Forget about the clean and climate-controlled fitness center full of fancy equipment and shiny weights. It’s time to change things up and find a way to get it done. Don’t let what you deem to be perfect be the enemy of good.

Do you have an old duffel bag in the house? Good, 50-lb bags of play sand cost less than five bucks at Home Depot. Fill up your duffel bag and carry, drag, press, and shoulder it until your lungs are on fire and your body is trembling.

Many people have some kind of weights lying around collecting dust. Dig them out of the basement and get to work.

That AirDyne you bought in 1995 that has been acting as a clothes hanger for the last decade? It’s time to crank it up.

Get out of the house and walk or hike. You might be pleasantly surprised at how many people you meet in your neighborhood by simply going for regular walks.

Find a big rock or log in the woods that you can take home and lift like Rocky training for Ivan Drago in Rocky IV.

Go for a jog or run some sprints. Is there a hill near your house? Even better.

Go to a local park and do some pull-ups on the monkey bars. You could also find a suitable tree branch or drape a towel over something sturdy and do pull-ups while also building a vice-like grip.

I get that equipment is hard to find and people are price-gouging right now, but I’ve heard a lot of people with $1,000+ dollar iPhones declare that they won’t spend $50 on some weights that could transform their life.

People always seem to find a way to afford the things that they deem valuable, and training is no exception.

What’s the Alternative?

People know I’m into fitness, lifting, and healthy eating, and that means I have a lot of conversations about these topics. Well, perhaps it would be more accurate to say that I listen to a lot of people explain to me why they can’t workout, lift weights, eat right, or really do anything that’s positive for their health. A common theme in most of these conversations is the person explaining to me that their knees prevent them from performing exercise of any kind.

“I used to run three our four miles but since I turned 35 my knees just hurt too much.”

“Squatting is bad for you knees, and my knees are already bad so I can’t squat.”

“You should feel lucky you still have young knees.”

“Doesn’t that hurt your knees?”

“Once you turn 30 you won’t be squatting anymore. Too hard on the knees.”

“My hips and knees ain’t what they used to be.” (This was said to me by a guy who is 28 years old and works a desk job).

The theme among many of these excuses is that seemingly everyone in the world apparently has bad knees, but you could substitute hips, back, shoulder, or any other body part in place of knees and it would still hold true for many people. Everyone has their ailments, aches, and pains. I understand that some people are born with genetic defects or terrible diseases that cause constant and/or excruciating pain, but the question remains the same though.

What’s the alternative?

So your knee/hip/back/whatever hurts. Are you just done? That’s it. Call it a life. Your physical ability to feel strong and healthy is just gone forever. It cannot be recovered. Better spend most of your day sitting in a chair and never lift anything greater than 10 pounds. Maybe pick up an opioid addiction to really numb out the pain. Let your body deteriorate and muscles atrophy to the point where you are not physically prepared to do anything other than sleep, get ready for work, sit in the car on the way to work, sit at work for eight hours straight, sit in the car on the way home from work, and then sit in front of the television before going back to sleep.

No way. Forget all that. Your body wants to move. Your body wants to be strong. The best way to fight pain is with physical strength. Donnie Thompson is a world record powerlifter and the first man to ever total 3,000 pounds in a powerlifting meet. He’s also very much into prehab, rehab, mobility, and recovery. One time I saw an interview of Donnie where he was talking about someone at his gym who had a bad back as a result of a car accident. Donnie told the guy, “Look, you can be weak and in pain, or you can be strong and in less pain.” I know which one I would choose. That’s a no-brainer.

When most people are in pain, they don’t want to do anything but lay around on their ass not moving. I realize there may be a time and place for this behavior, like shortly after a surgery or other catastrophic event, but those times are rare.

I realize that it’s scary and counterintuitive to have someone say that if you’re in pain, you need to be training, but it’s also true. And I’m not talking about training through pain at all costs or trying to prove how tough you are by ego lifting. I’m talking about just getting moving and being willing to endure a little bit of pain and discomfort for long term results and quality of life.

If your knees hurt, you might just find that squatting and getting stronger fixes them.

If your back hurts, you might just find that deadlifting and getting stronger fixes it.

If your shoulders hurt, you might just find that overhead pressing and getting stronger fixes them.

Now I’m not telling you that if you have a serious injury or are completely untrained, you should load a barbell up and go crazy. Squatting for you might start with getting in and out of a chair. Your deadlifts might be picking up a light kettlebell or dumbbell off the floor. As my high school football coach Brad Grayvold used to say, “It’s not where you start. It’s where you finish.”

The point of starting is that, well, you’re starting. Just get moving. Make some progress. Begin to load exercises a little bit at a time. If one specific exercise hurts, find something else that works the same muscles but doesn’t hurt. All of it will improve your physical, mental, and emotional strength. Your confidence and quality of life will be enhanced in ways you cannot imagine.

After all…What’s the alternative?

New Beginnings

After Zeus passed on August 8, I needed a mental break from everything. The house was so quiet and empty and cold. It felt like a part of my soul was missing. Dinnertime was the hardest, because I used to get Zeus his pre-dinner jerky, prepare his food, and hand him his dessert Milkbone. Throughout his three course meal, Zeus would come in and out of the back door a dozen times while I tended the grill and intermittently threw the ball for him. This was an amazing part of my day, and, suddenly, it was just gone.

Cali and I got out of town for a few days, traveling to Ann Arbor, MI, to visit her brother Broc and his fiancee Lauren. It was great to make a nice long drive, spend time with family, and just decompress away from home, work, and the fresh wounds from losing our doggy a couple weeks prior. We also did a light beer blind taste test bracket that was exactly as big of a shitshow as one might suspect. Miller Lite took the light beer category while Labatt Blue won the impromptu “International” bracket. This was a blast, and we’re already planning a fall/Thanksgiving rendition of the event.

The light beer bracket.

The International bracket.

Even among the pain of losing Zeus, Cali and I still had plenty of things for which to be thankful. Friday August 28 was our 10 year anniversary, marking the passing of a decade that went by in the blink of an eye. We have had so much fun, laughter, adventures, and memories over the past 10 years that it makes me excited to see what the next 10 years holds in store for us. We celebrated the weekend with a nice Friday morning hike, some hard training, good food, friends, and drinks. In summary, it was perfect.

A beautiful morning at Green Lane Park. August 28, 2020

I knew Cali and I would eventually get another dog, but I wasn’t sure how long we would wait. In my heart, I trusted that the time would just feel right.

That or, like most decisions around here, Cali would just tell me.

It turns out the time started to feel right after spending a weekend with Broc and Lauren’s awesome dog, Jagger. He pretty much snuggled Cali all weekend and I slid him lots of chicken and duck jerky treats on the side.

Fun car ride with Jagger on the way to Pinckney Recreation Area to do some hiking. August 16, 2020, Pinckney, MI.

Cali found a Bernedoodle (Bernese mountain dog and poodle mix) online, and I knew he was meant for our house. A few weeks later, Arvid was in our living room.

Arvid and Cali. September 2, 2020

So far, Arvid seems very sweet, and he already won’t let Cali out of his sight. This warms my heart because Zeus was the same way. Zeus was always okay as long as he knew Cali was okay, and the same could be said about me.

Here we go again.

Farewell to Zeus

This past Saturday, August 8, 2020, we had to have our beloved Zeus, the namesake of this website, put down. Zeus had essentially stopped eating and drinking. He lost 15 pounds and was shrinking before our very eyes as his energy dwindled and his ability to do the things he loved like chase the ball and go for walks disappeared. Zeus’s whole day had become transitioning from lying at the bottom of the stairs to lying at the entrance to our kitchen. Sure there were flashes of his former self, like when he would break out into a smile or come over for some butt scritches, but it was clear something was taking a severe physical toll on Zeus.

Over the last couple weeks, Cali and I had the vet run all kinds of tests on Zeus to try to figure out what was wrong. Multiple blood tests, x-rays, and an ultrasound revealed that Zeus had fluid in his belly, signs of internal bleeding, and probably had something more serious happening internally. In order to get a more definitive answer, bone marrow, liver, and spleen biopsies were required. It was an incredibly difficult decision, but Cali and I didn’t want to put our boy through all of those procedures, only to confirm that there was something more serious going on and harsh treatment like chemo would be necessary just to keep Zeus alive with a greatly reduced quality of life.

As always I try to keep things in perspective, and I don’t mean to be overly dramatic with this post. I know there are people out there who go through severe hardships, so I don’t want this to sound like I’m having a pity party for myself. Some people have to watch family members die of horrible diseases right before their eyes. Others have loved ones get murdered, killed at war, or die in car accidents and other senseless ways. It speaks to the fact that I have had a very easy and relatively carefree life, but I can honestly say that making the decision and following through with having Zeus put down was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. Zeus was my best friend and constant companion. He showed me unconditional love every day of my his life. Cali and I have been married for 10 years, and Zeus was almost nine. Our marriage was barely just beginning when we got him as a six year old puppy. How could I decide to not have him around anymore? Zeus was our first dog, so we had never been through the process or had to make a decision like that before. It was heartbreaking.

After Zeus was gone, being in the house was brutal. It seemed so quiet, empty, and cold. Cali and I would both randomly break down and sob while performing everyday tasks. You see, Zeus was my little shadow, and it feels incredibly strange doing things like taking out the trash or going out on the back deck to fire up the grill without hearing his little paws tick-tacking behind me on the floor. So much of my day revolved around taking him out back, going for walks, getting his food, getting him up to bed, and any other task one does for a pet. I feel lost, like part of my soul is missing.

Fortunately, Cali and I have made some amazing friends and coworkers here in Pennsylvania, and we had amazing support and love from them this past week. Our friends Eric and Katlyn came over Friday night with their dog Dorian. As always, they had plenty of treats and loving to share with Zeus on his last night.

On Saturday night, I went over to our neighbor’s house to have some drinks and socialize on their back deck. It was a very peaceful night with Chase and Christine, and playing with their dog, Kasey, really warmed my heart and helped my attitude about the situation. Immediately after Zeus passed, I was convinced that I would never be able to get another dog again. No dog could ever compare to Zeus, and it almost felt like I would be cheating on him if I shared my love with another dog. Kasey quickly made me realize this was not the case at all. I was throwing the ball for her and giving her pets, and her sheer joy and happiness made me realize everything was going to be okay. Kasey was just so into the moment and content with what was happening right in front of her that it made me forget about my crappy morning for a while. It was very surprising and awesome at the same time. A few days later, Christine brought over a very sweet card and Christmas tree ornament. The touching gesture brought Cali and I to tears.

On Sunday morning, I met two friends for an early morning bike ride. My buddy Peter and his girlfriend Liz, both coworkers of mine, got Cali a nice blanket and me a bottle of Knob Creek, one of my all-time favorite bourbons. This sweet gesture really meant a lot to us, and it made me think about how Cali and I have built a life and established a good network of people in this area.

Eric and Katlyn came over again on Sunday and treated Cali and me to hoagies from Primo’s. They also brought a very nice card and a framed collage of pictures of us with Zeus and Dorian from this past Friday night. It was so touching that it made Cali and I break out in tears, but it’s something we will no doubt keep and cherish forever. Getting to see Dorian and give her some loving also lifted my spirit and put a smile on my face.

On Thursday morning, our neighbors Catherine and Nick dropped off a touching and heartfelt card and heart-shaped dish that brought tears to the eyes of Cali and me. They had a dog pass away last year, and, at the time, I don’t think I really understood how tough it could be to go through something like that. Catherine told me about their dog’s passing when I was working out outside early one morning shortly after it happened, and it took me a moment to register what she had said. I followed up with her later that week, apologizing if I came across as dismissive or uncaring at the time. She was very sweet about it, but I definitely wish I would have done more to extend support for their family during that time.

Cali and I also both had very nice support and messages from other friends, neighbors, and coworkers. Even the vet made the euthanasia as delicate and gentle as possible on Saturday morning. Cali actually just left the house to bring them a card and some donuts as a token of our appreciation. All those little things really made getting through this past weekend easier and we are very appreciative. Often, when I know others are going through a tough time, I am reluctant to say or do anything. I always think that I don’t want to be another reminder about the situation or that I don’t know exactly what to say, so maybe it’s best to just not say anything. This experience has been a good reminder that little gestures and words of understanding can mean a lot to someone who is struggling, and I don’t need to be so hesitant about expressing condolences or reaching out to others in the future.

This card from my best buddy Igor really meant a lot to Cali and me.

I always wanted a dog when I was a kid, but my parents never let me get one. It turns out that I had to wait until I was almost 28 to finally get a dog, but when I did, I somehow managed to get the very best one. Zeus was never anything but a sweet and gentle soul, and he never expressed any bit of aggressiveness or meanness towards another living creature. He was attacked by other dogs in our neighborhood, and even though he was physically imposing, he never retaliated or bit back, although there were a few times where I wish he would have stood up for himself. Sometimes we would walk by other dogs and they would be barking and going crazy like they wanted to get at him, but he would just smile and keep trotting on by like he didn’t have a care in the world. When Zeus was first interacting with a new dog, he would go down onto his belly to try to get low in an effort to show that he wasn’t going to be mean or hurt the other dog. Our neighborhood has tons of kids, and, often times, a few would ask if they could pet Zeus when we were out walking. Zeus was not the biggest fan of pets, but he would oblige the kids, even hunkering down for smaller children so they could pet him without being scared. It was really incredible to watch how he instinctually knew when to be extra gentle and soft around these small children. Zeus loved sitting out back of our house on the leash and looking out into the neighborhood. Occasionally, I would look out and see that some of the neighborhood kids had been cutting through the backyard and stopped to pet Zeus. We never had to worry about him biting or hurting anyone, even if they were cutting through his turf. Zeus had earned our trust.

Cali and I regularly took Zeus out without any kind of leash or restraint, and not once did he take off on us or run away. It wasn’t even something that ever occurred to us a possibility. Zeus was always so worried about our whereabouts, particularly Cali’s, that we knew he wouldn’t let us out of his sight.

My sister Kristin’s father-in-law, Tim Rice, painted this picture of Zeus. When I unwrapped the package, I immediately broke down into tears. It perfectly captures Zeus’s sweet eyes, gentle smile, and love for playing with his frisbee.

I miss Zeus dearly and will for the rest of my life. I know that time will heal and life will carry on. I’ll have other dogs who will be special in their own way, but the memories of Zeus and the good times we had will remain. I have a million pictures of Zeus, but the one below sums him up pretty well. Outside, off the leash, wild, free, smiling, panting with satisfaction, and waiting until the time is right to chase his ball Orangey again.

Best. Dog. Ever.

Load Your Skeleton

Have you ever noticed that sometimes when you hear or read an idea, belief, or theory, you end up encountering that same theory in a bunch of different places in a short period of time? That happens to me quite frequently since I am constantly reading books and articles and listening to podcasts about training. Lately, I’ve been bombarded with this idea of the importance of skeletal loading and how important it is for maintaining strength, bone density, balance, and coordination. I’m not citing any sources here for any of these claims, but you can Google it and find all kinds of information. Better yet, try it yourself for a period of six months to a year and see how your body changes and how much better and stronger you feel doing just about everything in life.

I guess I should clarify that by skeletal loading, what I really mean, in short, is lifting weights, and therefore forcing your skeleton and other body structures to support and move a load.

Most of my lifting these days, twenty or so years after I first started, consists of very basic human movements that allow me to safely and efficiently build my body. Squats, bench presses, overhead presses, deadlifts, chins, kettlebell swings, kettlebell snatches, loaded carries (sandbags and kettlebells of all sizes and variations), and sled work like rows, drags, and pushes give me everything I need to load my skeleton and stay strong. You may notice that my lifting does not really include the use of any machines. There is nothing wrong with using machines, especially if the alternative is doing nothing, but machines that effectively load your skeleton and require full body tension and balance throughout the movement are few and far between. They are also very expensive, a pain in the ass to move, and take up a ton of space. None of this is ideal for a home gym warrior like myself.

Below are a couple questions or ideas that I always see thrown out there when people are told they should lift weights. Reading my brief answers pales in comparison to what would be learned by giving lifting a chance and seeing how it improves your overall health.

Why not just do bodyweight exercises?

This is a good question, and there are certainly a number of very fit individuals who only use bodyweight exercises. I love movements such as bodyweight chins, push-ups, and dips, but doing them only using one’s bodyweight without ever adding weight is a much different stimulus than squatting, pressing, or carrying a heavy weight that can be incrementally increased over time. The effect of heavy skeletal loading simply cannot be replaced without actually loading your skeleton.

I run/bike/do some other form of cardio so I should be good, right?

When many people think of working out, they think of doing long and slow sustained cardio for an extended period of time. Don’t get me wrong, I love cardio and have logged a lot of miles on my bicycle this summer, but while these activities do have their benefits, they are not replacements for all the aforementioned positives one gets from skeletal loading. It all comes down to force production and the way one’s body interacts with its environment. Steady state cardio, unfortunately, does not do much in terms of increasing the ability to produce force against an external object. Look at an old person who cannot maintain his/her balance while walking or standing up. This condition is undoubtedly a strength issue, and a better cardio base will not fix the problem.

Load your skeleton. You won’t be sorry.

Playing with a 40 kg kettlebell while looking out onto Lake Ontario at Breitbeck Park in Oswego, NY.