Nature Walk Observations #3

I just got back from a lovely signs of Spring woods march with the hound.  We walked along the length of the lake, and then took a shorcut a through a closed down golf course, where we trudged along what is usually a paved road in the summer, but is left to nature over winter.  That was the first time I had walked through at that time of year, and there weren't many tracks as we walked the road, but the few that were, were of critter and deer variety.  I suppose they stayed in their wooded trails even in the winter, afar from the open road. and that was the reason for the trail being unmarked for the most part.

As we walked down a long section of snow filled road that opened up into the valley below, something caught my eye through the woods and off to the right, and I thought it was a maintenence guy about to bust us for trespassing, but it was a lone whitetail deer, and it bounded across the open valley smoothly and silently, before following the road for a short distance, then turning up a steep hill into a forest of sumac, buckthorn, and oak trees beyond.  We lightly jogged across the thick, wet snow, and towards the area where the deer went in and followed his thin trail, ducking under and around the dreaded, invasive buckthorn (fun fact, er actually sad fact..buckthorn was sold in garden nurseries until the 1930's in Minnesota, and people actually paid for that scrub tree...if only they knew what a pest it has become-it's the Asian Carp of trees to give an idea.)

Anywho, after reaching the peak of that hill and turning around, and overlooking the valley we had come out of, I realized this spot in the trail afforded the best view of the surrounding area, as far as the eye could see.  That was to be expected, but when I walked a little further I realized that the entire walking trail exactly hugged the perimeter of the tennis courts, but with a thick buffer of sumac.  For a moment I imagined this trail I was following to be a human observatory of sorts for the animals..a way to watch humans and their strange going ons in the park, much as we watch animals with curiousity at the zoo or with binoculars or the camera.

Probably not, but fun to think about.

Captain Jetski's Famous One Pan Apple Cinnamon Almond Oats

One Pan Apple Cinnamon Almond Oatmeal Breakfast
First melt 1/2 tablespoon butter on lowest burn setting. As the butter melts chop the almonds using the double knife nut chopping technique (as pictured, and procured from Cook's Illustrated) until the nuts are chopped up nicely, (or until the butter melts.)
 Next, add a 1/4 teaspoon of vanilla extract into the melted butter, and swirl the pan so it coats evenly. Add the chopped nuts, stirring to lightly coat evenly. Then toss the oatmeal into the mix, and stir.
 While the nuts and oats lightly roast, dice up an apple ( I highly recommend an Organic Honeycrisp strain,) then sprinkle the cubed pieces lightly with cinnamon.
 Lastly, throw in water into the oatmeal nut mixture, along with the diced apples, and stir and fold the mixture over itself often in the pan until the oatmeal is cooked (should be 3-6 minutes depending on oatmeal cooking time.) Pour into a bowl and enjoy!

Take a Hike!

I was jogging through the Park Reserve a few months back when I started to look at a section of the trail with too much familiarity. What I mean by that, is, I stopped seeing/looking for new sights every few steps, and as a result every new step that day throughout the whole run seemed much like the previous step-predictable and repetitive, knowing what was around every corner. As a result of that thinking, I started looking far ahead, and wanting the run to be done. Mentally I finished the run and was back at the parking lot, even though physically I had only taken few steps. When I placed myself mentally back at the parking lot, ready to depart, I slowed to a waltz to collect my thoughts on the bark patterns of a nearby birch tree, and I realized I was in a hurry to be done, because I wasn't living in the moment, and that rush to be done encouraged the familiar surroundings starting to become too familiar-now they were repetitive, and repetition, though a great teacher for crafting a skill, can also in the same manner be the duller of new creativity..because if anything is done too long without variation, it becomes repetitiously stale, and takes away, rather than gives. Pretty soon, you worry that you are starting to just going through the motions. You are reminded of the Aesop quote about fire and water; "It is with our passions, as it is with fire and water, they are good servants but bad masters." (Aesop) So I stared at the birch bark, and thought of what enjoyment I was looking to find back at the vehicle, that couldn't be found where I was now, in the peaceful moment I was taking for granted..and you realize after thikning on it for a moment, that it is just that common human sickness we all have a little bit of, of never being quote fully satisfied, and always wanting a little more, no matter what it is that we currently have. It's the old "Rich Dad, Poor Dad," school of thought where people, if they earn a little more money, will just spend up to that new amount of income, and be equally broke as when they made half as much (but were equally happy or unhappy) is a good metaphor for finding fulfillment on the hiking trail of life too. Because once a mindset is established of being at a certain level of happiness that is attached to the pursuit of something external-whether money, health, happiness, looks, gadgets we own, car we drive, how updated the phone is..then true happiness is always out of reach, because it's not contained within us, but rather it's something external that is always just out of the reach of full happiness. So I changed my perspective in the moment on the trail, and started to see things differently, usually when this happens, it's time to take a different path, because the one that I have been on, has run its course, and with so many paths out there, with so many variables of possibilty, the new ones are likely to bring a new perspective, new sights, new footing, and new surroundings. But I started to look upwards, and look for different things that I usually look for. I kept my line ov vision, upward on the flatter sections, and started to lose myself in the moment of each steps, and before I knew it, I was forming some new ideas, and shortly after that the parking lot arrived, and too soon, because I went right past it, and did another loop. I know all that's been said before, in a number of ways, but it's hard (at least for me) to have a deep self realization of something without a uniquely personal experience that helps gleam that deeper understanding, and I truly believe a walk in the woods, helps us all no matter what find it a little easier. Not sure where I was going with this, I started out with a different title, and different subject and it morphed into a sales pitch for purchasing a park pass..which I can't think of a better value than a State Park Pass for the money spent.

Be Like Water This Year..

I'm thinking my metaphor this year is going to be the same as in the past few years (not many points for originality I know..) and that metaphor is a take from Eastern Philosophy..being like water..in a flowing river. Always flowing, if just a little bit, so as to prevent stagnation and from going bad, sometimes slowing down to reflect and swirl through some thoughts in the deeper thought waters; other times picking up speed, and energy, without trying to spill/lose any water that gets splashed ashore and forgotten. All the while moving forward, because water can't go backwards, just as humans can't make progress while going or looking backwards.

Cliche Gym Characters

Cliché Gym Characters

The Screecher

This individual (usually male) announces each repetition much in the same way an animal giving birth might sound like, with the final few repetitions of a set mimicking the final moments of delivery.  Usually the screeches are most heightened on the last repetition, when the noise is akin to a Macaw giving birth to a porcupine.  The screecher is also known to elevate the decibel level of screeching when the gym population is highest, (or when the pretty girl walks by) and scientists currently hypothesize that this may be a mating ritual. Decibel levels are also thought to increase when the screecher thinks they are endangered (someone getting too close to the piece of machinery they are working out at.)   Screechers are thought to be relatively harmless creatures if jet airplane ear plugs are worn…Unless eye contact is made during their very last repetition..  If eye contact is made with a screecher during the last repetition, than there is a high probability that you will spontaneously combust much like Mick Valsalva.

The Pigpen or Pepe LePew

This individual goes in to the gym every day doing their best Pig Pen (from Peanut’s) or Pepe LePew impression, stinking up the gym and the equipment with their latest essence.  They wear way too much perfume, (or body odor,) and leave a lingering trail of their proprietary stench behind wherever they workout, depleting oxygen levels to dangerously low levels.  Long after they have left the gym you can still pick up their scent in noxious waves of cheap cologne, unwashed armpit hair, durpleberry scented suave shampoo, or the worst; the famously pungent trans-fat sweat mixed with perfume/cologne that seems to defy gravity and hang around for hours until it has made an appearance in every olfactory orifice in the gym.  These offenders have never met a perfume they didn’t like (Pepe LePew) or a shower or washing machine they liked (Pig Pen) and the result is a wish that we would have brought a clothes pin to put over our nose when working out alongside the stinker.

The Wi-Fi Guy

Every week the question is re-asked in a desperate plea; “You guy’s have the Wi-Fi password.”? 

It’s the Wi-Fi Guy.

No will always be the answer, yet the question persists, getting more desperate with each passing week.  If only Starbucks had a gym attached, this individual would never leave home.  As the Wi-Fi Guy rides the recumbent bike the wheels are spinning and he is exercising, but the true workout is going on in his mind-for his brain is spinning even faster in a sheer panic for access to the internet.  During a typical workout, the Wi-Fi guy won’t let more than three seconds elapse without frantically re-searching the gym heavens for a source of Wi-Fi.  Though usually a workout for the Wi-Fi guy workout will be intense-owing to the reason it was fueled by anger from lack of internet access, the workout as a whole will be deemed an abysmal failure…for he could not update his status.  The Wi-Fi Guy’s cool down will involve the comment box.

Now some may wonder how an individual cannot go more than a half hour without some form of electronic gadgetry attached to their egg head, but that is a question best left for medical experts, or people that play them on television.  For now, I will slip on my Dr. Phil hat and hypothesize that an unhealthy allegiance exists towards electronic media, and an intervention is needed in the form of running Wi-Fi stained hands through fertile soil, instead of through the durpleberry keyboard, or perhaps a search through the local woods for a view of a songbird, instead of a google search for an image of one.

For now, the comment box would like to CTRL + ALT + DEL all Wi-Fi related comments for good.

By Nick Geschke

Workout Journal

April 17, 2011

       Well I was going to work my beautiful's today (biceps,) but I couldn't find the caution tape.. So instead I did plyometric handstand push ups, 6,500 Durpee's, and 10 levitation's for 5 seconds a pop..

Levitating

       Naturally I warmed myself up with 10 repetitions of face slapping myself (alternating hands) while screaming, "your not good enough," and then finished the warm up with 100 yard dash flying Bosu headbutt's.. For some reason when I awoke I couldn't remember how many I actually did, but I credited myself with 50.

       Now I need some protein, and I have heard that insects have the largest amount of protein concentration per milligram of body weight; particularly horse fly's and moth's.. So if anyone has killed any fresh ones lately, I would appreciate if they saved and then e-mailed them to me. They are pretty light so they should go through..

       Also I lost my portable transmogrification pod, so if anyone has seen it in the vicinity of 1995 I would appreciate it being returned to the South St. Paul Anytime Fitness.

       If it has brontosaur scat on the wheels, and dodo feathers on the windshield it is mine.

Thanks!

Toddy

The Nickly News  

“All the Fit that’s Fit to Print.”  April 16, 2011

*Text REDCROSS to 90999 to Give $10 Japan Earthquake and Pacific Tsunami*

This Week’s Man In History
Reinhold Messner

The world's greatest mountaineer pushed the limits of human endurance.
By JAMES GRAFF

The peculiar greatness of Reinhold Messner is grounded in a pure form of selfishness. His pas de deux with the world's most inhospitable wildernesses have always been about measuring his own might, skill and especially will. "I am Sisyphus," he has written, "and the stone which I push up the mountain is my own psyche."

            He has carried that heavy burden to the literal ends of the earth. Messner, 62, is not only the greatest high-altitude mountaineer the world has ever known; he is probably the best it will ever know. His 1980 solo ascent of Mount Everest by "fair means" — without sherpas, crevasse ladders or supplemental oxygen — remains the most primal test conceivable of man against the earth.

           That ascent, and Messner's subsequent conquest of the world's 13 other peaks of 8,000 m or more, set the gold standard for mountaineering. "He had nobody's footsteps to follow," says Ed Viesturs, an American climber who completed the fair-means ascent of all 14 of those peaks in spring 2005. "After Messner, the mystery of possibility was gone; there remained only the mystery of whether you could do it."

           Messner's obsession was formed early in the Dolomites and other Alpine ranges — he was born in a narrow German-speaking valley of Italy's South Tyrol. His first venture to the Himalayas in 1970 ended in tragedy when his younger brother Günther died after summiting Nanga Parbat. Several members of that expedition accused Messner of abandoning his brother in an egotistical push to open a new route of descent, but the discovery of Günther's body last year confirmed Messner's contention that he had been killed by an avalanche.

          Messner later traversed Greenland and the Gobi Desert, and tackled both poles by fair means. He served a term in the European Parliament for the Italian Green Party, and now heads a range of museums about the lure of mountains and raises a family back in South Tyrol, where it all began. He's been decried as arrogant, defensive and abrasive. But in answering to no one but himself, Messner obeys a higher calling. His achievements will inspire lone wolves and stubborn dreamers for generations to come.*

The Push Up

While fitness fads may come and go as fast as their late-night infomercials, some types of exercise transcend trends. Among them is the push-up, which uses your own body weight along with gravity to tone and condition muscles. Some fitness experts have called the push-up the closest thing there is to a perfect exercise. And with good reason; "The primary movers [the major muscle groups that produce the motion of a push-up] are the chest and triceps. However, if you look at the form your body takes during the perfect push-up, you're typically suspended from your toes all the way to your neck, so in reality, every muscle between your shoulders and your toes is engaged," says Bottesch. **

Nickly New’s Favorite Exercises

1.       Pull Up

2.       Push Up

3.       Olympic Squat

4.       Roundhouse Kick

5.       DB Curl
6. Right Cross
7. DB Shoulder Press


Quote of the Week

“Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body.”

-Sir Richard Steele 

*http://www.time.com/time/europe/hero2006/messner.html

**http://www.webmd.com/fitness-exercise/features/doing-the-perfect-push-up