P90X Done! Now With Photos!

Hah! Fell at the last hurdle. I put Will to bed last night at about 9 and read him "We're Going On A Bear Hunt" (a pretty scary book BTW) and then turned the lights out. Next thing I know I wake up at midnight and all I want to do is go back to sleep. So I missed my workout! So out of all 90 days of P90X, no rest days or nothing, the only workout I missed was the very last one! Before then, the closest I had come to missing a workout was on May 18 when I hurt my knee half way though Legs & Back and had to stop. Funny.
So I got up at 5 this morning and did the last workout, Yoga. Felt pretty tight being so early, but it's a pretty good way to wake up the body. Nice breakfast, and off to work.
It was my turn for chourei again. This is what I said.
"Before I came to Japan I had never tasted eel. The first time I ate it I didn't think it was very nice. But since then I have eaten it many times, and I have come to like the taste. This Friday is 'doyou no ushi no hi' [the day that is considered the peak of Summer in the old Japanese calendar and on which eel is traditionally eaten], so even though it is very expensive I am thinking of taking my family to eat eel [I'm not really, because it IS expensive, and I don't really like it that much]."
Needless to say this went down well because it incorporated the two things that Japanese people are obsessed with: Japan and food.
I was approached by a guy coming home from work last week. He wants to talk English with me. No books, just chatting at a cafe or bar one night a week for an hour or so. He seems like a nice guy, so I'm only going to charge him $130 a month.
I've booked a ticket home for the Granny! I love coming home and seeing everyone, so I can't wait. Someone tee up a big screen TV and drinks!

So here are the photos. Basically I've gone from a weak, moustached, crooked, wheezing piece of shit to a buff, cut, hard as fuck manimal.
J and I did the fitness test again this afternoon, and here are the results. What I've done is put the results of the test we did before I started P90X on April 29 first, followed by the results from this afternoon.
Weight: 81.1 kg / 81.6 kg
Body fat (calipers): 12/13/14 12.37% / 12/14/14 12.68%
Chest: 100 cm / 102 cm
Waist: 86 cm / 85 cm
Left arm: 34 cm / 35 cm
Right arm: 34 cm / 35 cm
Resting heart rate (after sitting down for 2 minutes): 60 bpm / 60 bpm
Blood pressure: 109/60 / 114/66
Max pull ups: 7 / 15
Max push ups: 42 / 52
Toe touch: +6 / +12
Max wall squat time: 2'03" / 3'08"
Bicep curls (10 kg): 36 / 50
In and outs: 63 / 100
Heart rate after Jumping Jacks for 2 minutes (last 30 sec at full speed)
1 min: 127 / 121
2 min: 114 / 111
3 min: 111 / 105
4 min: 102 / 100
I'm really happy with a lot of these figures. Though it is amazing that all that work, 3 months of busting my ass, only gets me another ten push ups. The wall squats hurt, and the bicep curls too. Happy with that number.
Well, it's been fun. I'll keep the blog going, try to keep the ranting to a minimum, and keep you all up to date with my life here in J-land.
Thanks for reading.

Two To Go!

I've got Cardio X tonight, and then Yoga tomorrow, and the that's it! Done.
It's been a long journey, and the last couple of weeks have been especially long. Insightful though. Last week I think I had X Stretch, which is an hour long. It's an optional rest day, but I have always done the Stretch and never taken a rest day. I like the Stretch and I'm always glad I did it after I do it. So I'm walking down to the garage thinking, aw man, an hour. I'm really tired, and I'd love to just sit down and watch TV for a while blah blah blah. That voice that we all know so well. So I agreed and turned around and went back up the steps. Before I got to the top I thought, hang on, you've got all the gear in your hands, you were walking down the steps, and then suddenly you just stop and turn around and don't do it? What's up with that? Just fucking do it! (there's that phrase again). So I turned around again and went down into the garage and did it. That has happened three or four times this month. It's just my body being worn out, and my mind representing it. Each time, I have woken up to it and shut it up and turned it around. I could have just listened to the voice and be watching TV thinking oh well, that's a shame, but like the voice says, I deserve a day off blah blah blah. Once you get used to hearing that voice and slapping it down, it gets weaker and weaker. I am worn out, and I do deserve a break, and I get one in a couple of days when P90X is finished, and man am I looking forward to it.
It is hard to believe I have done it. It seemed so daunting at the start. The P90 workouts that I started in September were like 40 minutes long. Then the ones in P90 Master were 50 minutes. P90X workouts are mostly 1 hour long, and then there's Ab Ripper X stuck on the end of three of them so that's another 15 minutes. It is a massive time commitment. I have been lucky that the whole time I've been doing P90X I've had three day work weeks. On four out of the seven days I could do it whenever I wanted. That was lucky. Having a 5 or 6 day a week job and doing P90X would be tough. Often it was so discouraging to press play and start warming up to see something like 58:23 left on the clock. Oh man, an hour. And then Ab Ripper X! NOOO! Especially during the last few weeks when it has been so hot. Towards the end I got a little less resistant to taking breaks during the workouts because of the heat, especially in the resistance workouts.
The videos themselves are great. Tony is the man, and somehow he didn't get annoying after almost 10 months of doing his videos. It's all high-quality stuff, and I wish I could have the chance to buy some of the gear and supplements they sell over the internet, but they don't ship to Japan. I kind of feel like I owe them some money after downloading all their stuff for free. Hah! Kind of.
One thing I would do different, and I've talked about it heaps, is food. I never wanted to get 'cut', that real muscley thin-skinned look, so the diet isn't really for me. But I could have eaten better, and more! Many times, especially since I've had so many days off work, I've gone too long without eating. When you get hungry your body starts to be on the look-out for high-calorie crap, and it's so easy to down a piece of cake or a pack of chips. But I was hungry too often, and I should have bothered to prepare some kind of healthy snack each day. I'm hungry now, dammit! Also, I couldn't give up the coffee. Those cans of coffee are too nice, too sweet. I'm still on two, three a day. The chips have kind of fallen away, although if there's something I really want to watch, I'll go down the shop and buy some. Maybe once a week. I ran out of protein shake last week and haven't bothered to buy any more. I do loves me some protein shake though, even though it makes my sweat stink like ammonia (not pleasant). My theory is that it is the Chocolate flavoured shake. I'll experiment when I start up again. Apart from that, I didn't really change anything about my diet. Next time I'll pay more attention to it. 'Next time' will be a hybrid workout schedule with a mix of P90X, P90X+, and One on One with Tony, and will start around the beginning of September. Or I could go and buy a fan for the garage and start earlier. We'll see how I feel after a couple of weeks doing nothing. I'm sure I'll be pretty restless by then.
The anniversary of mum's death is next week, the 3rd. I know she would be proud of me, so that's nice. I'm thinking about coming home for a week or so in September for the Grand Final, because that's the day I feel most homesick, and I know I'm going to land at the airport and drive half way to Bayswater before I realize that she's not there any more. That might be a tough moment. Oakleigh's about half way, isn't it? I'll just pull in and visit Mikka!
I watched Bruno on the weekend. Funny, funny movie. I don't know why, but the bit that made me laugh the most was when he was riding the scooter with OJ. Not checking traffic was the sealer for me. I'm also watching Terminator Salvation. Meh. The action's good, but what's with the macho bullshit? I'm looking forward to The Road. If it's anything like the book, here's a movie that has a hero who, when faced with an apocalyptic landscape and cannibals who want to eat his son, actually seems a little concerned about it all. Not this too-cool-for-school attitude that Christian Bale and Denzel Washington (he's got a new movie set in an apocalyptic landscape too) have perfected. What is it with American movies and apocalyptic landscapes recently? Was Bush that bad? Maybe they need to nuke themselves and get it out of their system. 2012 is coming soon too. Another black president oversees the destruction of America (the world). This time it's Danny Glover. In the movie, when his scientific advisor tells him that the Mayan prophecy of the end of the world is coming true, he actually says "I'm too old for this shit." The Mayans think the world will end in 2012? And where are these Mayans? Oh yea, their civilisation was wiped out a thousand years ago. Obviously they missed a more pertinent date.
Anyway, the next post will have the tale of the tape. I'm doing the fitness test that I did before I started P90X again, so I'll put the results up, and the before/after pics too. Until then, thanks for reading.

Day 88

Only a couple of days to go now. I did Kenpo X yesterday for the first time in a month. A sweat fest. I was strong all the way through and I enjoyed it. I've got a nice old stretch today. The other day I had core synergistics. If I had to choose one workout that I think would keep me fit if I only did that one, this would be it. It's pretty full on. I felt much stronger doing it than I did the last time I did it, which was a month ago.
Like every recovery week, it feels like an eternity since I have done any resistance training.
So it will all be over soon. I think I'll keep the blog going, but it'll probably drop off a little, especially while I'm only working three days a week. But it is a good way for my friends and family back home to keep track of what I'm doing (if anyone's reading it, that is). I wish some of them had taken up my offer six months ago to do the program with me and contribute to the blog though.
So AFL season all over for the Swans. I don't think I can bring myself to watch the Melbourne - Swans game. It will be shit. I'll watch the saints - bulldogs game instead, or maybe the Hawks Cats match (though I know who wins that one). I see there's a female commentator. Poor lady. If she's as mediocre as all of the male commentators are, she's going to be torn apart.
I'll do a larger post on Monday or Tuesday, a look back on the last nine months of working out.

Partial Solar Eclipse

There's going to be a partial solar eclipse today. Here's what Will thinks will happen.

Damn. It is really cloudy and crappy today so we won't be able to see the partial solar eclipse clearly. About 80% of the sun will be eclipsed here in Nagoya, and a total eclipse happens down near Iwo Jima. Shame. It should be getting pretty dark here in half an hour or so though. I'll take a photo.
I did Cardio X instead of Kenpo X yesterday. I'm kind of bored of Kenpo now. I think the kicks are useful for strectching the hamstrings, but other than that it's just a cardio workout. Cardio X is fresh, and I enjoyed it a lot last night. I'll use this one to stay in touch while I take a bit of a break for the rest of the Summer.
Well, I went outside and had a look and took this photo.

It's pretty gloomy at the moment, but no more than a cloudy Winter's day. It's amazing how bright it is outside even though most of the sun is covered. It makes me think, the Sun; do we really need it?
Anyway, no time to ponder the deeper meaning of our place in the universe that only a cosmic event can provoke. There's a report about an automatic part shape data creation function to translate!

Day 82

I did my last Legs & Back today. The whole time I was doing it I was thinking, this is it! Last one! But in the back of my mind I know that I'll be doing it again some time, so I don't want to build it up like it's some hellish trial because that might make it harder to get up for doing it all over again like I plan to. Today sucked because it was so hot and I am so tired from getting up and watching the golf. I still did as many pull-ups as I did last week, but it's really easy to just let the last week fade away. It happened to me when I did P90. You think, I've done all the hard work, there's no point finishing, I'm going to stop soon anyway, so why don't I just stop now? Take the photos, pat yourself on the back and give yourself a handshake, and stop.
No dammit. 90 days is 90 days. Just fucking do it. (Picture me at a Nike Marketing meeting about twenty years ago. "Yea, I like it, but what about 'just FUCKING do it'? No good?")
I am really bummed that Tom Watson didn't win the British Open. This guy is like a ghost of past golfing legends. I remember he was my favourite golfer when I was 7 because he had the same last name as Paul Watson, a kid that lived over the road from me. That's all I knew about golf at the time. All he had to do was two putt eighteen. It wasn't hard, but his putting is what killed his career back in the eighties, and those two putts were rancid. As soon as the play-off started he looked tired and made some tired swings and it was all over. Cink is a good player and he deserved to win because he holed the putts. Golf is all about putting, which sucks. It just goes to show you that there aren't any fairy tales in sport anymore. Everything has become so professional and so intense that dreams just aren't enough. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for that, because I like the best and most prepared players/teams to win, but I just wish this one could have slipped through.

Day 80

Man it is warm. I had a cold shower this afternoon after Ab Ripper X, and I'm trying to keep moving to a minimum to avoid sweating. 34 degrees today. I took Will to the pool, which was fun. A kid kind of latched himself onto me, which happens a lot. His grandmother had brought him to the pool and she was picking him up later, he said. He was about 7 or 8, he wouldn't tell me, which was strange. We played for a while, just throwing a ball around, but then I noticed that every time he went underwater and came up there would be this huge cable of snot coming out his nose, and he would splash it off with water and it would go floating around in the pool. The second time he did this the snot was floating near my leg, so I got out. I was trying to get Will out too, but he was having fun. I would rather not know what's floating around in a kid's pool.
I have been crushing the workouts this week. I have put a fan in the garage, so that helps with the heat, but it is still amazing how much I sweat. Another thing, my sweat smells funny. It has a real ammonia kind of smell. I looked it up on the web, and it seems like a common problem when exercising, but of course there were a million causes and a million remedies. It seem to have something to do with protein and carbs, and an apple a day will fix it, apparently. An apple a day will fix most things, and I have been craving them recently, so maybe that's the solution.
Well, today is day 80. 10 days to go. I'll write a larger post on Tuesday when I'm back at work. Monday's a public holiday. BTW I'm loving Breaking Bad. I just watched that episode when Jessy goes to the Meth addicts' house to get his money back, and he found out they had a kid. Poor kid. I've watched a documentary about the Meth epidemic in America. Bad news.

Day 77 - Feeling Better

I did exactly what I said I was going to do. I sat down with a bag of chips and watched Footy Classified, and then got to bed about 10. We had the windows open and the fan on level 2, but it was still bloody hot. Next thing I know, Junko's waking me up and it's 7:10, and I usually leave for work at 7:20. Wow. I haven't slept that long for ages. So I decided to ride my motorbike to work, which I do every now and then, and had a quick breakfast, a quick wrestle with Will, and I headed to work.
I really have to do more riding. I've done about 2 and a half thousand k's since I bought my bike, but they are all just around the hills near my house, on a Sunday afternoon or something. I haven't actually gone for a ride with a goal in mind, or a destination. It's a good looking bike, a Honda CB400SS, and it goes okay, but I can see the appeal of having more power. I think I'll go for a couple of big rides during the Summer holidays. Maybe to a hot spring or something. Hey Stevie, do you remember when you, me, and Kouki went to the hot spring, and we saw that guy with all the tattoos? Can I just say how rare and amazing that is, to see a guy like that, so obviously Yakuza? I wish we had talked to him a little, see if he was a good guy or something. I was also thinking of climbing Mount Fuji sometime in the Summer, but it sounds like it kind of sucks. Eight hours of walking up a steep hill with a bunch of other people. I'll do it with Will when he's a little older. I hope I don't get altitude sickness.
I haven't come close to coming off my bike yet (touch wood). The closest I have come was when I was out in the hills and rice paddies and I was going round a bend and there was this old Yoda woman crossing the road pulling a cart. I wasn't going fast so there was no chance of me hitting her, but I am amazed that she has lived so long doing that. I told my mother-in-law about it and she said the people who live in those areas consider the roads to be theirs and don't really pay much attention to traffic. We are talking beautiful black tarmac roads with clear white lines and an 80 km speed limit, not crumbly country lanes. Old people here are amazing. I think after years of worrying what other people think of them and never being sure that they are doing things properly, there comes a time in every Japanese person's life, especially the men, when they think, "Ah, fuck it," and they just start doing whatever they want. You can do anything here, and no one will stop you. It must be quite a revelation when that realization comes. The old guys start walking around in their underwear, yelling at convenience store shop assistants, spitting, pissing, whatever. It is kind of inspirational. There's an old guy who lives a couple of doors down who's taken to tossing his rubbish on the roof of the house over the road. He is not happy about something they did last year, something to do with parking or something. I asked Junko why the guy who lives in this house the old guy is throwing rubbish on (we know him, his daughter goes to Kinder with Will) doesn't just beat the crap out of this old man, and she says it's because the old man is crazy. That explains why he's throwing the rubbish, but not why our friend shouldn't beat the crap out of him, in my opinion. I give the old guy the evil eye every time I see him, a look which says "I know your game, buddy. You've got everyone running scared. But fuck with me, and I will retaliate." I think he understands.

Day 76

I got up early again this morning and did Kenpo Cardio Plus followed by Ab Ripper X. I'm not a big fan of this workout. It's very fast, and my form gets sloppy and I just want it to be over. I do it because it's quick - 40 minutes. With Ab Ripper X on the end of it, that makes it about an hour. Ab Ripper X was fine. I was actually looking forward to it this morning because it meant that Kenpo was done. While I was doing Pfiffer scissors, I remembered that when I started I could barely do ten of them. Now I could do about 30 or 40 if I really had to, though I always only do the required 25. The improvements are really pleasing. It doesn't feel any easier though, it's just that I can do more.
Anyway, the Kenpo this morning was pretty bad. The intensity was really down, and I was probably wasting my time. I sweated buckets, drank about 700 ml while I was doing it, and I just had no energy. I need a good night's sleep tonight, and a good X stretch tomorrow and then I need to grow a pair for the last week of intense workouts. Then I have one more week of recovery and then that will be it. Done. It's hard to believe that I started this blog nearly six months ago, when I had no idea what P90X had in store for me. And then to think that I started P90 last September! I can't wait to get the before and after shots side my side. Nearly a year of workouts! I must have done a couple of hundred workouts down in that garage since then. It's weird, because I kind of owe my life to a company and a trainer in America who has no idea who I am. I certainly owe a way of life to them that means I will live longer and better. I said in my first blog that I was waking up at nights thinking that I was going to get lung cancer. That doesn't happen anymore. I still might get it, but I can only do what I can do now to prevent that from happening. I don't really beat myself up about smoking because I was like a fish on a hook. One wrong decision when I was young and it took 15 years to get off them. A lot of people don't, and a lot of people die from them. That's what they are designed to do - hook young people and keep them hooked for life until it kills them. I'm sure the tobacco companies wished their product didn't kill them, but it does. That's why they have to get more young people hooked. I thought it was tough, or grown-up, for a while, then that didn't matter. Then I knew they sucked and I hated them, but that didn't matter either. My mother asked me to stop smoking the last time I saw her alive, and I was smoking at her funeral. What a disgusting drug. I'm so glad I have managed to get rid of that dark shadow in my life and be free of them.
But like I said, two weeks to go, and I have run out of petrol. I think what I'll do is buy a pack of chips, sit down and watch Footy Classified, and go to bed.

Day 75

The alarm went off at 5:15 and I got up and did Legs & Back. No questions asked. Strange when you consider the attitude I went to bed with last night, which was "doubtful" that I would get up and do it. But I did, and it's done now. Except for Ab Ripper X, which I will do this evening before my bath. I don't like to do it "cold", but doing Legs & Back is much easier knowing that I don't have to do Ab Ripper X right afterwards. Did a total of 68 pull-ups this morning, all with proper form. I did 210 push-ups during Chest & Back last week, a big improvement from the weeks before, so the numbers are increasing. Everything's up about 5-10%. It's good to see the progress, because I feel like it's all getting a little silly now. It's just too damn hot to be doing this, though with only a week to go of Phase three then a week of Recovery, I can't stop now.
So back at work now. How do you know it's Monday morning? Stinking hot, a crowded sardine train, a politician at the station with a loudspeaker at headache-inducing volume, a chorei about the benefits of bananas, which was interrupted by an announcement from the Personnel section telling us to wear a seatbelt when we drive. It's funny the way Japan can just intrude into my life when I'm not really thinking about it. I've got no work to do though, which is nice.

Day 74

I'm really doing it tough now. Only a couple of weeks to go. Some of the workouts this week have been great, the best since I started. Numbers are up, and I'm looking and feeling strong. But I'm also talking myself out of others, too. Plyo on Friday sucked big time. I know it's going to be a sweatfest, and I dread it. I forgot to put my sneakers out in the sun afterwards to dry them out because they were squelchy from sweat, and they're still wet (Sunday night). So I just couldn't get up for it, and then after twenty minutes I had a chest pain, like a one-pulse stab, which kind of knocked me back. God knows what is was. But exercising in this humidity is taking it's toll. I took a little break then eased back into it, and actually the last twenty minutes I kicked ass. I haven't felt it again, so it was probably just a blip. Yesterday was Arms & Shoulders, which I crushed, and today was Yoga, another sweatfest. I really did not want to do it, but I did. But tomorrow is the big one. Legs & Back. At this stage, 11:00 on a Sunday night, I don't think I'll be getting up in the morning to do it. But if I don't, I'll have to do it after work or not at all. And in the current mindset I'm in, missing a workout with only two weeks to go would just about be the end of it, I reckon. So this is the big hump I've been expecting for months, to be honest, but never came until now. I'll just have to get up and do it, and bring it!

Day 68

Today was the dreaded Legs & Back. It actually wasn't so bad today. A workman-like effort. No negative thoughts, no wishing it was over, just doing it and getting it done. My knees are giving me no trouble, though my right knee crunches considerably when it's under pressure, but it doesn't hurt. I've got Ab Ripper X tonight. Yoga on Sunday was awesome. I was really looking forward to it. The amount of sweat I generated made my Yoga mat all squishy and slippery. It's gross, and really hard to concentrate on downward dog when my hands are slipping all the time. Yoga is so hard. I bought a recovery drink that has a little bit of creatine in it. That should help a little with the results, and I'm not eating any junk. I had a donut over the weekend and that was it. Now I can have the recovery drink after my workout, and save the protein shake, which I love, for TV watching in the evening. There's a new workout that's coming out by the same company that made P90X. It's called Insanity. I downloaded the preview disk and it is insanity. It's only forty minutes long, but you really have to wonder where all this is going. This is real masochistic stuff. There are a lot of angry-looking women with six pack abs grunting in this video. "They have to come up with a new word for 'insanity,'" says one guy. "This is too crazy." What is more crazy that insanity? Psychopathic?
I don't know if I should try it. I probably will.
I just started watching Breaking Bad because Stevie said it was good. I like it. I gave up on Battlestar Galactica. Half way through the third season and I just can't be bothered any more. Half way through the third season of Babylon 5 and I was getting goose-bumps and giggling it was that good. Still the best, in my opinion. BTW it is amazing how similar On The Couch, Footy Classified, and One Week at a Time are. And I have to say, Footy Classified is my favourite. I didn't like it last year. I thought it was too confrontational, too in-house. I think this year the difference is Grant Thomas. You can see why he's unemployable, but he's a funny bugger.
Well, we won't be going to Okinawa. Plane's full. That's one thing about living in a country with 120 million people. Any idea you have, you can bet that ten thousand other people have had exactly the same idea, and most of them had it a day before you did. Even if you felt like going and sucking farts out of a dead donkey's ass, you can guarantee there'd be a queue. It gives me the shits. Going out for lunch on a Sunday turns into a wait-fest, and of course if I object in the slightest to having to wait 30 minutes to eat eel or octopus brains or whatever, I am a child. I guess in America they have the room to accommodate everyone. Here, everything is the same size as Australia, except there are six times as many people. I am never alone. It's weird. There is always someone around. I walk out of my house at 6 in the morning or get home from somewhere at midnight and there will be an old guy shuffling along or someone on their bike. It was strange when I went home last year and stayed at mum's while she was in hospital. I would walk the dog for half an hour and not see a soul. The streets were deserted like a virus had hit and everyone was dead. A car would drive by every now and then but that was it. But I have to say I kind of miss being around people when I am not here.
Wow. Just watched the first half of the Saints Geelong match during lunch. So that's what footy looks like. I especially like it when the player takes a mark and does what the commentators have dubbed a 'play-on,' meaning he doesn't just stand there and wait until there are no options. And the players are remarkably self-disciplined. I haven't seen anyone punch an opposition player in the head yet. Mind you, it's still early. The good ones usually wait until a critical moment with three minutes to go in the final quarter, don't they. I haven't bothered watching the Swans game yet. I wasn't really planning to anyway, and then dad sent me a text on Sunday afternoon saying "Bad luck. If we had kicked straight..." WTF dad! He sent me another mail immediately afterwards, but I haven't opened it. I know it contains the result to the Saints Geelong match. I don't know how many times I've told him not to call or text me before I see the game (which is usually by Tuesday) but if he's anything he is excitable, my dad. That reminds me, last week I was downloading Swans Adelaide and some noob wrote in the comments "Me and me mate are 5 for 5 in the tipping!" I typed back "I hope you and your mate are geniuses and tipped the Swans to beat Adelaide in Adelaide, you asshole." This upset him. "You don't know me. You don't know who I tipped" etc. Have I told you just how hard it is to see a game without knowing the result before I see it? Probably.
We had a fun weekend. But on Saturday Will was constipated all day. He's got a thing about doing pooz. I guess it's just a stage. He doesn't like going to the toilet, and we get upset when he pooz in his pants, so he's out of options. He just holds it in until he feels crook and then it hurts when it comes out and *sigh* just do a shit in the toilet and let's get on with our lives! It started in the morning when we went to Mister Donuts. We get to the train station and it's "Daddy, I'm sleepy." It's ten in the morning. I know this is code for "I need to do pooz." So he's sooky all day, and by the evening he cannot function as a human being. So we put him in the bath, and then dry him off and put a nappy on him, and out it comes. "It's like elephant pooz, daddy," he said which made me laugh. It was a fair size. We clean him up, and bang! He's like a new man, playing and singing and dancing. I think even Joseph, who can't really form thoughts yet, thought, "What a freak." So we are all exhausted after about twelve hours of his wining and moaning, and he wants to play play dough and jump on the bed and have a banana shake and all sorts of things.
He's nearly four and he still has to wear nappies. He doesn't wear them to bed anymore, and we haven't wet the bed yet (touch wood) but he won't do pooz in the toilet. I heard that children are wearing nappies later and later in life because the nappies nowadays are so good that the baby doesn't mind wearing them and changing nappies is much easier for the parents than soaking shit-ridden pants. When nappies were just cotton towels, everybody thought they sucked and the baby was out of them at 18 months. That's amazing. And now, when I go to a chemist or supermarket here, I'm amazed at the amount of adult nappies that are for sale. One reason for that, of course, is that the average age here is 87, but another is because they are so comfortable. When do you decide that you need to start wearing nappies again?
I tell you, the gap is narrowing.
P.S. I just had a look at the mail dad sent me. The one I had already read. It actually says, "Bad luck Dave. kick straight and it would have been different." I think Dave is David, his brother, who barracks for North. I didn't read it carefully yesterday because I turned it off as soon as I realised what it was. I hate North. They just seem illegitimate, like they don't belong. '96 was bullshit, too. So there you go. We win. I might watch it now. So a careless mistake by dad, but I won't tell him because he'll feel really bad. It just occurred to me that the next message he sent was probably to me to say sorry. Should I check? Should I take that chance? I've still got two and a half quarters of the most anticipated home and away match to go. Ok. I love my dad, and I'll trust him. A son has to trust his dad. Here we go.
"Sorry jim. sent a u a txt by mistake meant to send it to david-my brother."
There you go. I feel really good now.

Second Week of Phase 3

I did Back & Biceps today, followed by Ab Ripper X. Every day I am pushing myself harder than I did the day before, and even though I'm wrecked I feel really good about doing this. You would think these workouts get easier as you go along, but they don't. The end is in sight, and I'm really looking forward to taking a break. I'm still thinking about what I'm going to do when I finish P90X, because the thought of being slack and undoing all of the hard work I've done, especially in the last three months, is really scary. But I can't keep this up. Well, I can, but not in Summer. It's only starting to get hot now, and I can feel the effect of the humidity on my exercises. It's strength-sapping. I think I'll do some kind of maintenance workouts until it cools down, and then get stuck into it again in Autumn.
We are thinking of going to Okinawa for a few days at the end of August. Junko has a friend who used to go there all the time with her husband until they had three boys, so she has giving a lot of advice about where to go. I don't like going to a place and only having a photo and the word of someone with a vested interest to guide me. I'm thinking that Okinawa is a place that could really suck (and by that I mean it could be like here except with a few thousand American Marines walking around) or it could be beautiful and like here except everyone is a little more relaxed.
It's a shame to hear about Jim Stynes. Cancer is just the shittiest thing around, isn't it?
Anyway, got to go and play with Will.

TGIW

This week has gone so quickly. Recovery week went so slowly and I was really looking looking forward to this week and now it is done already. Recovery week just seemed like one whole week of doing downward dog. And then bang! I did Kenpo Cardio + last night and now the week is done. I did Kenpo Cardio + last night instead of Kenpo X because it's shorter. It's much more intense, though not as much of a workout as Kenpo X. It seems a little rushed, and it's so easy to lose form. I've only got four weeks to go, so I'm not going to make a habit of this. It's just that last night I didn't get started till late and it was really humid and I didn't want to do an hour workout so I did a 45 minute one. Today I've got X Stretch which I really need, and then tomorrow it begins again with Chest, Shoulders & Triceps, then Ab Ripper X. Holy shit. I must BRING IT!
Just got word yesterday that the 3 day working week will continue until at least the end of August. Awesome. September too, I hope. It's just so nice only working 3 days a week. I think 4 days work a week is perfect - I don't really have enough to do at home to fill up four days - but I no complain. There is a new saying in the translating department; "Thank God it's Wednesday."
Thanks for reading.

Play Time