Communication

Why is it that people make things difficult on purpose? I think we've all played the game of telephone sometime in our life. If not, its that game where you whisper something into someone's ear, and then they say something twisted and fucked up to the person next to them as if you told them to say it. You smile innocently, and then she'll never talk to you again. Its great. Anyway, we all know the game, and it can be super fun, but no matter how hard you try and how specific you are, the message is always different once it gets past 3 or 4 people. We know this; it is no secret. Why then, if people have this knowledge of  this very important game of telephone, do they still prefer to take the round about way of communicating? Its like they want the message to get twisted and confused; perhaps they don't even want you to receive a message at all, or at the very least know that it came from them. 

Lost? Okay, you're lost. So my phone didn't turn on the other week. I know, right? My fucking phone. That little thing that stores our entire lives in the form of pictures, videos, some texts, definitely no voicemail, and Clash of Clans. Clash of Clans!! And I was in the middle of a war and hadn't made my attacks yet! Yeah, it was a bit frustrating. So I took steps. I made an appointment at my wonderful cell carrier (Sprint) for them to take a look. Do I have insurance? No, why the fuck would I have insurance? I thought you were going to sell me a product that works. Since the phone won't turn on, they can't diagnose anything. They offered me a refurbished phone of the same model, an LG G3, for 75 bones. Not a terrible deal, but not exactly a great deal. Mind you this phone was something like $600 and so I've been paying it off interest free for the last 18 months; which means I have 6 months of $25 payments to go til its mine. Too bad it doesn't work anymore I guess. Short insert here; what if I did have insurance? Well then they would replace the phone for free. Great deal, right? Insurance is 8 bucks a month, and I've had the phone for 18 months. Eight times eighteen is 144. So the 'free' replacement phone woulda just cost me $144. So not exactly a great deal. But lets not dilly dally here, the real culprit is LG. I've babied their product for the past year and a half and it repays me by up and leaving without so much as a note. No signs, no nothing. Worked great up until the moment it never turned on again. So here's where this communication game comes in. I go to LGs website and submit a request for assistance. They respond in a timely manner with some suggestions; all of the suggestions of course presume the phone can turn on, which I specifically noted is not possible in my initial request. The response was timely, but unhelpful.

This is one of those emails that you can't respond to, and they didn't give me any ticket info or anything to reference, so I have to submit another request. I printed the initial email to pdf and attached it in my second request, so they for sure know now that I need a repair. I also included the recommended phone info as well, and all my contact info. They respond in timely fashion once again, and again no info about what to do for a repair.

Round three. At this point I find out there is a separate email request form specifically for repairs. SO it was my fault for not finding that first, and not their fault for just forwarding my request and/or telling me about their own services. Anywho, so I submit that request, and their response takes a bit longer this time. I presume they took the extra time to formulate a more helpful response. Nope. Helpful response is not an option with LG. Apparently I have to call for an answer. 

Its not that I don't love calling in for support on products, especially to massive corporations, but if that was the only option to get this done then why do you even have other much more readily available options? I'm making an assumption here, but it must be to guarantee that you're upset when you call in for support. You know, make sure those customer representatives are really on their game that day. I'm gonna leave this little story as a part one of two, but just so as to not leave you hanging too much, I called into LG, got a repair ticket number, and then sent my phone in. They were specific that I had to write the irrational hexadecimal 18 digit ticket numeral down both on the package and in the package so that they can verify its me. Apparently my name and address on the package isn't enough. Oh, and they can't email or otherwise send me this ridiculously long and cryptic sequence of numbers and letters because then it wouldn't be secure. Nope, they can only tell it to me over the phone a single time, and have me repeat it back to them to verify. If I somehow write it down wrong then or in the future, then its gone forever and I have to start over. How on earth did this process get approved? And does this actually work?

So yeah, communication is fun. I actually work in tech support answering calls and emails for much of the day and it really just boggles my mind how poorly some companies have this set up. Anyway, lets talk about something more fun, cuz its the weekend. I saw Zootopia this past Saturday, and there is definitely reason to why people are going crazy for this movie. Its absolutely hilarious, the story is original and fun, its smart for kids and adults, and Jason Bateman is a miracle as Nick the fox. I started laughing at the beginning, and there was almost no reason to stop for the entire film. The animation is obviously well done, but the different city areas for the animals and the way characters interact really took some creative minds. The kids in the theater are just having fun and laughing at what dazzles their eyes, and the script is so smart that adults are laughing right along with their kids, yet for usually completely different reasons. The way they use the very obvious differences and stereotypes among animals to show discrimination really demonstrates how silly discrimination is, especially among a single species like homo sapiens. It also shows how real discrimination is; you may be able to describe someone as tall, smart, fast, white, black, orange, weak, or hairy, but to think that description defines them, that you can now label them and make assumptions about the characteristics you may not be able to see or perceive, well now you've just crossed over. I'm not going to go on about discrimination and how its a bad thing (hopefully you already know that), but I will say that this movie is great for showing it to us in very simple and approachable manner. Just because someone is small does not make them weak. Just because someone is big doesn't mean they're not cuddly. Just because you're born with one leg doesn't mean you can't be a track star. If you have the desire, then many things are possible. So when your 7 year old nephew or 27 year old cousin ask you why they shouldn't judge X because of Y, you can say 'because a fucking bunny can become a cop, that's why'. Seriously though, its a great movie and a great story that can be learned from many times over. For its great story, excellent characters, non stop laughs, and possible Vehicross clone cop car I give this cinematic feature 7 out of 7 fox tails.

In other news, I saw London has Fallen. It gets 5/7 fox tails for being exactly what its supposed to be, but by passing on an obvious decapitation opportunity during a chase scene. You still rock Gerry.

And for those following along on my biggest loser campaign, I weighed in at 194.2 lbs this past Wednesday, which is a 5.3lb and 2.65% loss. I also was able to get out last Friday to do Cindy, and knocked out 15 rounds with an additional 15 reps (5 pullups and 10 pushups) in the allotted 20 minutes. I also attempted a max number of standard pullups this week, and reached 10 in a row. Now get out there and enjoy the weather. Take 'er easy.

Benchmarks

So week one of this whole weight loss competition is down and I gotta say, I feel pretty good. Of course my diet and exercise is pretty much unchanged from the last few months, so that's not much of a surprise. I decided to kick off the weight loss weekend by doing what I do best; kicking ass and taking names. In this case that means I went to Bad Weather Brewery for a pint in the early afternoon, and had defeated Shredder on their Turtles in Time arcade by late afternoon. What? You expected I was gonna start my marathon training? Go sow some alfalfa sprouts and quinoa? 

Lets just say I started with a cheat day. After all, you have to keep your mental health too, right? And possibly more importantly, we can't have the foot clan running the streets; not on my streets of Saint Paul. No no.

Okay, where were we? That's right, weight loss stuff. I have to say, I was a bit overwhelmed, surprised, and extremely appreciative of all the comments and support I've gotten so far. My readers are just as nice and supportive as my wife!

I had people give me recipes, share some workouts they like, and even send me some general weight loss and fitness plans they've used; apparently many of us have been here before. And since you guys have stepped it up, it has encouraged me to do the same. My previous post may have given some people the idea that I just want to lift and get ripped, but this is about whole body health, and that means helping my body with exercise and nutrition, as well as building strong mental and social health too. Whats the point of looking like Leonidas if you've got no life or friends? Pshhh. So it was time to set some benchmarks, some initial shakedowns if you will. Do something this week, and then see how I'm doing at week 5 and 10. The ultimate plan is to win the competition, but its fruitless if I don't track myself and learn how to keep it up. This week I decided on 3 exercises/workouts/things to test my physical fitness level, and they are long distance running speed (3+ miles), the Army Physical Fitness Test (APFT), and Cindy (Crossfit WOD). 

You know I have to use Zombieland, right? 

So its a wee bit cold out here in good ol' Minneapolis, but I decided to go all natural and strap on my lightweight performance shoes, a matching jogging suit, and hit the trail for a nice jaunt around the lake. Over to Lake Harriet, around the Lake (which was a beautiful overcast grey; seriously though, beautiful #blessedMN), and then back again. I ticked off about 4.2 miles, didn't have to flip off any cars, stayed warm, and it took me a few seconds shy of 35 minutes. Do the math and that's 8:20 minute miles. By ridiculous comparison, my marathon pace in 2011 was also 8:20. Sounds good, right? The first 13.1 miles of that marathon however, I was at a 7:10 pace. So I was able to run over a minute a mile faster for 3 times the distance in 2011 than today. So I have some room to grow; that's the point of this anyway! Lets move on and see how we fared concerning the military. I mean, its a gov't run organization so its gotta be pretty easy and accepting, right?

(Yeah, Full Metal Jacket is the Marines. Its a gif; get over it.) The Army PFT consists of doing as many push-ups as possible in 2 minutes, as many sit-ups as possible in 2 minutes, and then a 2 mile run. I remember doing this kind of stuff in middle school; easy. Per Army guidelines I had a spotter count out my reps and time me, allowed 10 minute rest between drills, only used specific rest positions, and no music. I could blame the lack of music, my workout from the day before, or my immature attitude, but no matter how you cut it, I didn't do great in this test.

I knocked out 45 push-ups, 51 sit-ups, and ran the 2 miles in 14:56.

Feel free to checkout the scorecard charts here if you like, but I'll save you the suspense; I passed. My 12 year old middle school self would most likely have kicked my ass though. I thought I was in shape? So you have to score at least 60 in each category (check the charts), and I got 66 in PU, a 66 in SU, and 82 in the run for a total score of 214. However there's a height and weight requirement as well, and at 5'7" the max allowable weight is... 174lbs. Wowza. Yeah, not even close. So technically I failed. I'll have to tape off my neck and stomach before next week to see if I fall within their body fat standards. Yup, the superior United States military with its billion dollar drones and million dollar missiles calculates your body fat from comparing your neck to your belly. Whatev, lets move on to Cindy.

Now I think crossfit is an amazing workout and exercise idea, but that gif just cracks me up. Any who, Cindy WOD. For you non-crossfitters out there (come on, paleo diet dude) WOD stands for Workout Of the Day, and Cindy is a common WOD that people can use to compare themselves. Its a circuit of 5 pull-ups (kipping ones), 10 push-ups, and 15 squats AMRAP (as many reps as possible; f'in crossfitters love their acronyms almost as much as the military). I usually do a similar workout with standard pull-ups and inverted rows, but I wanted to try and knock this one out like a crossfit purist.

Okay, so I didn't exactly fail, but my gym only has one pull up bar, and its attached to the seemingly always in use cable crossover machine. I couldn't take it over for 20 minutes, so I went in search of a playground to use some monkey bars or something.

Yeah, yeah. At least I got a good bike ride in, but all these new age playgrounds are barely 5' off the ground to keep kids safe, and all the monkey bars look like they came out of a Dr Seuss book. What, we can't have straight bars anymore? Any who, I'm not giving up on this, and since Friday is the LEAST busy time for Snap fitness, I'm hoping to knock out Cindy tonite and get back to y'all with a baseline for the weeks to come.

I've once again blabbed on for way longer than expected, but I want to note that the wife and I went above and beyond in the kitchen this week too. Tried out stuffed peppers for the first time, btw they're super easy. Step one, buy peppers. Step 2, cook whatever you have in the house. Step 3, stuff and bake. We had some ground turkey, green salsa, a can of corn, and a can of black beans. They were f'in delicious, healthy, and carb free. We also used some leftover red pepper to place in a muffin tin with some diced ham, and then filled each cup up with some eggs. Then pop int he oven for a spell. Super easy again, and then we had egg and ham muffins for breakfast, instead of some sad ass yogurt. I put jalapenos on the top of mine too. Yum!!

Thanks again for all the fitness and nutrition ideas, and definitely keep 'em coming! If there are any workouts you'd like to compare then let me know and I'll try and work it in and post the results. Likewise with recipes. Time to take on the theater this weekend with the top rated Zootopia, and the bottom rated London has Fallen. So excited. Take er easy.