Sit-ups / Push-ups

 I have not much to report this week, my numbers are increasing at a slow but steady pace, not at the rate that I original planed but they are increasing. I am finding it difficult (near impossible) at this time to maintain the pace that I had set for myself prior to the start of this year. I do have hope that when things settle and the changes that have occurred in my family life become my new norm, I will again be able to concentrate on picking up the pace to make up for this lag. I am thankful for the push-ups and sit-ups on keeping me engaged, without them I feel that I might have been lost.

Where am I? What am I doing?

But My Eyes Aren't Blind...

I'm having a hard time finding a balance. Not so much in my schedule, thats always just a big tornado, but in who I am and what I believe vs. the way the world really works. I had a rough couple days at work, solely due to the mentality of some people I work with. I had a job where there was quite a bit of friction between myself and another contractor, and in the end the other contractor showed no ethical consciousness, no qualms with distorting the truth. This last weekend was a downer for me, simply because I couldn't get this situation out of my mind. I was aghast that another soul could have such malicious intentions.

My boss has told me repeatedly that this is just a job, leave work at work. And I get that. But, herein lies the problem. I've been taught and I believe that everyone should be held accountable, and should be respectful towards other souls. It doesn't matter the setting, be it at work or at home or in the grocery store. So what bothers me is that no one is holding this man accountable, and he will continue to make other people miserable. He's been doing it to us for years now. And never has anyone stopped him.

Just let it roll off your back. You're better than that. Take the high road. Sure, fine. But does that really solve anything? No.

This is the problem- the more you stick your head in the sand the worse a situation will get. We assume too much that someone else will fix it. We assume that there are no consequences when we let something significant roll of our back. And this is why our world is in such rough shape. Stick your head in the sand about emissions, about politics, murder and diminishing forests and cruelty. Someone else will fix it.

That even sounds wrong.

Fuel

I am spending alot of time lately pondering on diet and the food that is distributed to the public. Most of it is absolute garbage and I really don't understand how you can loosen regulations on what is and what is not allowed to be put in our food. I really don't get how you can legally get away with installing disease such as cancer and diabetes and all the effects that come with genetically modifying our food in the name of money, and literally and slowly killing people by the masses. Where I come from that is known as murder and quite frankly these are people we can honestly do without. There is also the total bullshit claim of how they're so many more people to feed and they have to do this in order to feed everyone. Once upon a time before the corporate disease and sociopaths took over everything, we had hundreds of thousands of honest farmers. We had great economic relationships with other countries that supplied us with natural, non modified products. We used to have massive sugar beet farms, animals that used to be fed by crops people grew. Now we use corn syrup and steroids. Then came a bunch of clowns that said why are you wasting all that time and money to feed your livestock. Grow massive corn fields that require very little maintenance or overhead and shoot these steroid implants in the cows ear. Feed them corn that has nothing in it really that is of any benefit to man nor beast. The corn fools the animals digestive system to think it is eating what it is supposed too and the steroids make the animal grow that much faster and the money comes in that much quicker. No more extra costs, just quicker profits with less overhead. For those of you that eat meat you will notice something if you really pay attention. Most meat nowadays has no flavor and when you cook it, its mostly water. Welcome to the world of steroids. All this crap is altering our genetics as people and killing us. If you don't believe me try to hook yourself up with a farmer that feeds their animals naturally and see if you can buy a chicken off him or whatever. You'll realize I know what I'm talking about. I came from a farm and lived in southern Alberta, an area that was rich with pork, chicken, and beef farmers. I seen the crops change and the steroids come in. I also seen how normal people became rich fast and the after effects. Another good example is wheat and soy. Wheat wasn't bad for you like it is now because the seeds my father bought weren't altered to grow the perfect kernel regardless of weather or soil. To be the right weight and size. There was also many places to buy different types of seeds. Now you can probably count on the fact it is monopolized by some corporation with some sociopath at the helm. Soy, same story. Pretty sad overall when you look at all these shareholders that are financial backing to disease and murder. Thinking that just because they put a sociopath in place to run operations, that it washes their hands of all responsibility and they didn't know. Really though, how pathetic are you as a person to poison woman and children and think we are all stupid in the name of money. How much is enough. When are we going to stop being sheep and start restoring the community and annihilate the disconnection. Why are we as a whole buying into the crap that we read and watch on television and see it as truth. Why have we let corporations become stronger than the very people we voted in, to run our governments. The same people that should have stepped in stopped all of this from happening in the first place. Things have to change, but one mans rant/meltdown isn't going to do it. We have to change together as people.
Brian Chervenka

OMG

Theres always either so much I could post about or nothing at all...hard to choose in either side. Today I wanted to tell about a course I am taking--I signed up to take a Organic Master Gardeners course here in Stony. (OMG for short...how appropriate) So far I love it! Its cool how here in the kwoon we have so many different back grounds and jobs and yet, something in common. Its the same in this course. We are all drawn by a need, even a hunger to learn more. To learn how to do things that benefit the environment and ourselves, maybe make a small piece of the world a better place. Its a very cool group and I look forward to learning alot with them. I will be having classes on most Wed and some Sat's so I may be scarce a few times, but not for a bad reason. I am still learning and that says it all.

Captain's Blog, Stardate 2013.03.04, U.S.S. Enterprise - Who are you reporting to?

I don't like blogging just to take up space and check it off the list. I find I feel like I've cheated.  So there are numerous things every week that I could write about, but given that my priorities don't change very much, it feels like I've worn the same path over and over for a while now.

I did a dumb thing today. I was moving heavy things around the garage, and I didn't even stop to think that I was putting lots of power through my knee until it started tightening up. and some more. and some more. Now I am faced with a decision, what should I do next? This is the frustrating part. Do I ignore it and keep going, and show it who's boss? Or do I treat it gingerly and give it all the care I can think of? Is it at the point I think it is? Or is it something I can push through?

That last question is really sticky, because you're never sure if it's something you can't push through until it's far too late, and you've done a huge amount of avoidable damage. I don't know. I really don't.

I've been really frustrated with myself lately. For many things, and yet it comes down to the one root cause. But let's just say it's many little things.

So let me tell a story of what happened this past saturday night. It starts with me driving through the storm, and I see a car just off the road up ahead. It was snowing and such, so I pulled over and asked them if there was anything I could do to help. It was then that I recognized that one of the boys there. he was someone I went to school with briefly in the past. I will be brief and just say that my experience with him was rather unpleasant, and if my peers are to be taken at their word, I was not alone. So I proceeded to offer my assistance, pulling his car out of the ditch, being as polite as I have ever been.

Afterwards, I was a little unsettled. I had just spent the better part of an hour assisting a person whose interactions with myself in the past had been so negative. A small part of me was wondering why I did. Most of me knew there was a good reason, but I just couldn't put it into words yet. It was a little while after that the conclusion drawn was as follows: It doesn't matter who it was. At all. It never did.

Now here's where I bring this whole post together. I hope.

I didn't stop to help because I had seen who it was. I stopped out of habit. I do so, because I expect myself to behave a certain way. This is but one of things that result from the standards I set for myself. So it makes it  important for me to see that I need to ignore who he was, other than just someone who's day I could make a tad better. It does not matter who it was, because I know that I would have done the same regardless of who it turned out to be, and that's the end of it.

Which leads me back to the title of this post. In each of the four almost unrelated things I have discussed so far, it all comes down to the same thing. Who am I reporting to? Who's rules am I breaking or following? Who puts an X on the things I've done wrong?

I think it should be my future self.

Richard Leung
http://amadmanspursuitofclarity.blogspot.ca/

Numbers

These are my numbers for February.
Push ups and sit ups 3600 for both.
26 rounds of sparring.
14 reps of my hand form and 8 of my weapons form.

     While they are not what I envisioned for a start they are a start. In my mind I saw my numbers being high and a flow being unmatched. Reality has set in. This journey I am embarking on is going to take a re-evaluation of my time use more so than I originally thought. Already I see the hours I waste , where before the start of the UBBT , I thought were put to relatively good use. I don't see me trying to brush my teeth while doing sit-ups. Yet.

     So where do I start ?
     

Scott Fuhr

Step by step

This year I finally started to use my pedometer each day at work. I knew I put on a few paces over the course of a day but never actually measured this until now. I was actually surprised to see the miles I put on in a given day.  I actually haven’t even put in a busy walk day as of yet but am still walking between one and a half to almost three miles a day. Have to say those miles can add up in a hurry, lucky I have good shoes to wear.  I do spend most of my days walking from place to place so this will definitely help with my overall miles for the course of the year. Was nice to have our open training on Friday, I really enjoy those extra days for us and can really help maintain momentum with our forms and such.
Sifu Bryant
My Blog