David's Boring Blog

 Malcolm Gladwell coined the 10,000 hour rule. If you are not familiar with said rule let me provide a simple and incomplete explanation because you have google and if you want to know more you can jolly well research it. Gladwell's 10,000 rule states that in order to achieve proficiency in complex skills like playing the violin you need 10,000 hours of intensive practice.  I like this theory in all of its flaws. It reinforces the idea that," practice makes perfect." As a blanket statement it makes a person believe that through repetition you can naturally improve. In many ways the 10,000 rule could be the policy of a simple minded but focused person.  It totally disregards the quality of instruction that a person is getting for a skill. I could spend 10,000 hours playing chess with an uneducated and untrained opponent and I will unlikely develop my chess game much at all. I could shoot 10,000 hours of basketball playing against my six year old and it is unlikely that I w

 Last Sunday I found myself pedaling and drenched in sweat. It isn't unusual to sweat during exercise, but I have superior endurance. I typically don't start losing my breath until the five mile mark. I also do not normally break out in a sweat until around the twenty minute mark. I was winded and sweating in the first few minutes. I knew something was off. I stopped at 14.1 miles Sunday. Monday my throat was sore and my sinuses stuffy. My determination to not be sick saw me put in 19.3 miles on the bike. I huffed and puffed the whole way. The cough started later Monday night. It was not an auspicious start to my vacation. Most of all I was really determined to not allow yet another 2021 illness to put me off my exercise.  When the fever set in Tuesday I knew the streak was broken. I was not going to be up to working out for a few days. My streak held from 14 November until 20 December. I went as hard as I was able every day. That is a great start to my latest fitness journey. 

 It is ten minutes until five in the morning as I unexpectedly find myself at the keyboard to write this post. I woke up a few hours ago coughing from this most recent cold. Since I had COVID-19 back in March of this year, it seems as if I catch everything that cycles around. I am thankful that my immune system and over-the-counter medication makes short work of most of it. Still, I feel the change in myself and it is not a welcome one. That might be apparent to any regular reader as I talk about it bitterly.  With the house dark and the Mucinex doing its work I should have been back asleep within an hour or so. I was surprised at myself being wide awake when my daughter started whining in the early hours from a nightmare. It was good to be awake to soothe her back to sleep and to tuck her back into her bed. With that though I was firmly awake and the likeliest return to sleep was going to be found reading a book. That was where I made my mistake. I have been rereading the Wheel of Tim

As an experiment in behavioral modification I have failed in twice and succeeded twice.  One of my successes is completely unintentional. When I started this protocol five weeks ago I set out with some simple goals: Draw something every day Write an hour every day  Post two blogs each week on Monday and Thursday Exercise a minimum of one hour each day At the close of week three I decided against continuing my efforts into writing daily and drawing. I found myself interested in maintaining in my twice a week blog posts. They felt interesting to me. I like blogging even when I do not know most of my small audience. I was not enjoying putting work into scripts, novels, and Dungeons and Dragons campaigns. Some of that is related to a crisis of identity. I do not like calling myself a writer anymore. I do not have a problem labeling myself a blogger. I am cutting a fine distinction with that one. A blogger is a writer who posts their works to a specialized type of website. Why, then, am I n

 I got to thinking hard about my tendency to go overboard with things when I was writing that post. That same energy can be channeled constructively, I think. I have learned a few things about human behavior because of my interests. I know that it is very difficult to give yourself commands like, "I will not smoke." The catch is that people do successful stop behaviors. Some of them happen through willpower. The cold turkey, white knuckling method is a thing. I stopped drinking soda that way in 2014. One day I was guzzling a 44-ounce, ice cold Coke. The next day I was carrying around bottles of water and have fever dreams oddly similar to the concession commercial you see before a movie only without the rollercoaster. I never did like rides that I was not controlling.  If I am going to end up more healthy I cannot rely completely on cardio. Even a daily calorie burn is not enough to get me up to speed. I believe I am approaching this in an interesting way. Adding Archery to b

 I lost nine pounds this week. Likely I did not. I lost some weight, but the difference in wearing my slip on shoes, cutting off my shaggy hair, and shaving my beard had some impact on the scale. Though giving myself credit for losing four and a half pounds is still pretty fantastic.  Having bought a scale last week I realized I had let myself go even further than I had believed. I am proud of myself for the way I handled this revelation. I didn't sink into a funk or get angry. I pulled myself together and realized that I have given myself some work to do. I bought myself a new ring.  I have been wearing a warrior's ring around my wrist. It features raven's heads at the end of the ornate twists. I think of these as symbolic of Odin's ravens Hugin and Munin.  Two ravens sit on his (Odin’s) shoulders and whisper all the news which they see and hear into his ear; they are called Huginn and Muninn. He sends them out in the morning to fly around the whole world, and by break

 The human brain is an interesting thing. I cannot say for sure that these habits that I am trying to craft for myself are actually working or if I am just adhering to a system I have created through intentional practice. I can say for sure that I have written, drawn, and exercised daily since I started this up. I also am partially dissatisfied with my current measurement criteria.  I still find myself leaning into preferred activities. I am more comfortable pulling out a pencil and piece of paper to draw rather than switching on my Surface and grabbing my Surface Pen. I am more comfortable with sketching something with pencil, inking my final sketch with a fine line marker, and then coloring with a marker. I am getting tons of practice drawing though and for now that is what matters.  I still have an easier time blogging than working on the narrative of a novel. I am avoiding my outline actively at this point. I finally just surrendered to that impulse. If I really wanted to be a nove

 Years ago I had a typical adult moment where I realized that my stress level had somewhat taken control of my life. I was angry which was not uncommon for me from about age ten until my mid thirties. I was depressed. I was completely overwhelmed. I also had no clear idea as to what was going on in my head or my heart. Those are a confusing combination of feelings.  I was no stranger to antidepressants. I had used Prozac for depression and Buspar for anxiety in the past. I do not like taking medication of any kind to this very day, but there are times when medicine is not an optional thing. I headed to my doctor's office knowing that I was needing help and not vulnerable enough to admit that I was having an emotional crisis.  The doctor heard me out. I got to try Vytorin. It would be the first and last time that I would use that particular medicine. I literally hallucinated. I am talking seeing Purple Smurfs running down the aisles at my job and giant bat like creatures flying besi

 This morning the last thing I really feel like doing is pecking out a blog post. I do not know what I do feel like doing honestly. I would say crawl into my bed and get some rest, but that seems to make me feel worse rather than better so I am sitting here preparing for work and trying to make my oxygen starved brain focus and burn through these daily quests with more effort than I really feel like applying. Score a point of determination and dedication.  Since I survived Covid-19 back in March my lungs have never been quite the same. If my allergies act up or I catch a cold it becomes difficult to breathe like never before. If you add in some sinus congestion I am just miserable feeling winded and sometimes even light headed. Even talking too long at a stretch can trigger that feeling. Given how much I love to talk that is a special torture.  I push through all of this as best I can. Monday I overdid it a bit. I pushed myself until I was very winded on the treadmill and then spent my