Saturday, July 22 – Sunday, July 23

A reasonably tolerable weekend, all things considered. While I worked full 8-hour shifts at the Major Home Improvement Retailer, they seemed to go more quickly than I expected. Or hoped. I’m not sure exactly why that was the case. My best theory is that customer traffic flow was consistent. Many times, over the course of a shift I’ll have flurries of activity interspersed with a lot of standing around doing nothing. When that happens, the shifts just seem to drag on forever. And the opposite happens when I’m at about the same busyness level over the course of a shift. Of course this is all individual perception, your mileage may vary and all that.

Not much else to report, I was pretty lazy each day when not working. It’s hard to have much motivation after working for eight hours even if the work wasn’t too taxing. Fortunately, as I’ve noted, my MHIR hours will be dropping in another week. That finally will give me the chance to get more accomplished, especially (but not limited to) going to the gym. Can’t hardly wait!

Friday, July 21

DMV follies

Today was the day. I couldn’t put it off any longer. Yes, I had to pay a visit to the local DMV office and transfer an out-of-state vehicle. While most of my recent DMV visits have been reasonably easy, I knew that this one would take longer because of the more complicated nature of my transaction. What I didn’t know was just how much longer.

Try almost three hours. The vast majority of which was waiting for my number to be called, once I finally made it to a window it took less than ten minutes. As I waited and waited, people around me were griping about the endless wait, as if that would make things move any faster. What I did not know until later was that Fridays are the worst days to go to this office, because the next nearest one is for some strange reason closed on Fridays (Google is no help in figuring out why).  At least I got a snazzy new set of plates for all my waiting …. and for my fee of $198.

Tuesday, July 18 – Thursday, July 20

Sameness

All three of these days were as similar as peas in a pod. Each day at my main job was easy, and I didn’t have any scheduled shifts at the Major Home Improvement Retailer. It was a much-desired chance to rest and recover from all the work I’ve been doing. After one more busy week my MHIR schedule will be getting easier with the end of the season. Thankfully. I took advantage of these easy days to make two gym visits, on Tuesday and Thursday. Both went well, nothing earth shattering but nonetheless productive.

My plan is that starting August 1, with my easier work schedule, I’m going to follow – or try to follow, ha ha – a more focused, structured regimen at the gym. In other words I’ll plan out in advance what to do, rather than making spur of the moment decisions upon arrival. This also will entail a weekly schedule. While I generally like flexibility rather than rigid adherence to a schedules, I’ve been thinking that this might be better for me. Less risk of slacking off. True, my work schedule is a big reason why my gym work has been sporadic and unfocused, but it’s certainly not the only reason. Maybe this new approach will help.

Monday, July 17

Eleven is not my favorite number

Today was a bad day at both my jobs. What should have been an easy enough day at my main job wasn’t, on account of some unexpected complications. Instead of getting out a bit early, as I had expected, I worked until shortly after normal quitting time. As for the Major Home Improvement Retailer, I had a 5:30 to 11 shift. Not only is that a long shift for a both-jobs day, but I dislike five-and-a-half-hour shifts on principle too. Under company rules you have to get a lunch break if you work six hours, but anything short of that, even 30 minutes short as in my case, mean no lunch.  I really suspect that sort of scheduling is entirely deliberate.

Another thing I didn’t like is that I worked until 11, which is one hour after the store closes. Which meant that for the last hour of my shift I had very little to do. Had there been a freight delivery I could have helped the freight team pack it out, but there hadn’t been one. As you might expect, the last hour passed very, very slowly.

Saturday, July 15 – Sunday, July 16

Two full 8-hour shifts at the Major Home Improvement Retailer. Okay, Sunday’s was 7 hours 30 minutes, big deal. What made these shifts tough was not just all the work I did, but the fact that I will be working three out of the next four evenings (Monday, Tuesday and Thursday). By the time all is said and done I will have worked six out of eight days, and that’s not even counting my main job. That’s a lot, and I’m finding that my energy level is diminishing fast. But every dark cloud has a silver lining, or so the expression goes, and in my case it’s that after next week things should be getting much more tolerable as the garden season winds down … assuming it actually does wind down. The sub-season which I call Mulch Season should be almost done, yet people keep buying more and more of the danged stuff.

Needless to say, I did not make it to the gym this weekend, on Saturday I got out of the MHIR early enough for a gym trip but I was way too beat. Once my hours drop I’ll be able to go on a regular basis once more.

Friday, July 14

Not home on the range

It was a dreary wet Friday, and while I usually don’t care much about the weather today was an exception. I had been planning to go to the shooting range, for the first time in too long, but if it even was open it would not have been a pleasant trip, so I didn’t go. Next Friday, for sure. Maybe.

At least the gym is indoors. I went in the mid-afternoon, fairly early for me, and had a decent back session. T-bar rows: 6 x 6 x 110. Hammer Strength high-rows: 6 x 8 x 90/90. I followed with some assorted medicine ball work.

Thursday, July 13

So much for an easy shift

Another decent day to wind down the week at my main job. This really has been a very easy work cycle, I’m hoping that the one that will be starting a week from Monday will be easy too. We’ll see.

It was good that the start of my day was easy, because I had a long shift at the Major Home Improvement Retailer, 4:30 to 10.  It looked at first as if it would be an easy shift, as heavy rains kept most customers away and there were several other people working in the Garden department. Of course this state of affairs didn’t last. Around 7, the worst of the rains having passed (and the temperature having plummeted), the manager on duty decided that me and a couple other workers had to disassemble these now-empty temporary plant racks, consisting of boards laid atop cement blocks. Lots of heavy 10″ x 12′ boards and heavy cement blocks. I won’t quite say it was backbreaking, but it sure wasn’t easy. I was very thankful that the temperature had fallen!

Wednesday, July 12

Life intervened

Another decent day at my main job, finishing up my tasks at a reasonably early time. What makes this somewhat surprising is that I was at what’s usually the most troublesome of my four worksites. If something goes wrong at a site, it’s most commonly at this one.

I originally had planned to make another gym visit in the evening, but some issues came up and made that unfeasible. Frustrating, but that’s how things often go … yes, I could be one of those fanatics who won’t let anything short of a Category 5 hurricane stop him from going to the gym (and maybe not even that), but I’m not quite at that level. Come to think of it, if you are at that level, the gym probably isn’t even fun anymore, having become a duty. And that’s going a bit too far, if you ask me.

On a better note, we were able to have burgers at Bobby’s Burger Palace at the nearby mall. I had the burger of the month, the Cheyenne Burger, which featured melted cheddar, barbecue sauce, bacon, and some massive onion rings. It was one of the best they’ve had in quite a while, definitely one of my favorites. Can’t wait to see what August will bring!

 

Tuesday, July 11

Well that was a decent session

Another relatively easy day at my main job, a bit more difficult than the day before but not bad at all. I was back by 2pm, and in a somewhat unusual move decided to go to the gym shortly afterward. While many people preach the virtues of morning exercise, indeed most gyms open at very early hours like 4am if they’re not 24-hour, that just doesn’t work for me. I prefer to exercise in the evenings, and despite what some morning advocates say it works fine for me. So going at around 3pm was a bit of a change for me.

A successful change, I might add. It was a quite satisfying session even though the flat benches were occupied and bench pressing wasn’t on the menu. I did some bodyweight dips as a substitute, 3 x 6, followed up by Hammer Strength shoulder presses, 5 x 8 x 80/80. Next came French presses, 5 x 8 x 40, and then pec deck flies, 4 x 8 x 140. I finished up the session with some various medicine ball exercises. All in all it went well, but the fact that I went a few hours earlier than usual does not mean that I’ve magically become an advocate for very early exercise. No thank you!

Monday, July 10

That wasn’t so bad

It was the start of a new work cycle at my main job after a week off, and based on some things I’d heard from management I was fearing a really tough cycle. No early departures. As it turned out, the cycle’s not bad at all. I was finished and on my way back by 1pm, which is pretty good for a new cycle.

We went to a mall about 25 miles away in the early afternoon, for what turned out to be an unsuccessful search for a particular item, but on a better note we had dinner at P.F. Chang’s, very good as always. In a bit of a departure from the usual, I took advantage of the happy hour and had three drinks (I wasn’t driving), two raspberry martinis and one red sangria. Very rarely do I drink that much, but hey, one had to indulge every so often, right?