New Book and Other Random Thoughts

I just finished Tale of Two Cities. I know there are some people that don't like it; I thought most of the book was fine and the last 3-4 chapters were incredible. I have to admit that it has been a long time since a book almost made me cry.

Going into it, I didn't know much about it other than the title and the very first line: "It was the best of times. It was the worst of times." I was impressed how all the seemingly random chapters pulled together near the end. Even more impressive was when I read that Charles Dickens wrote and published a chapter a week in the periodical he was the editor of. Simply amazing. I don't want to give too much of it away, but the two cities are London and Paris in the years/months/days before and during the bloody French Revolution.

Now I'm on to The Arabian Nights - or more specifically, an abbreviated edition of it (since the whole thing is several volumes long). It's still the original Richard Burton translation, though. First impressions: No paragraphs! Arrg! Just one gigantic wall of text with no convenient place to take a break. Not only that, but it didn't take me long to understand why there have been objections to it over the years. It can be a bit...umm...risque in some scenes. It's definately not a book for kids...even if there are kid cartoons based on many of the stories. It caught me a bit off guard.

On a completely separate topic, I haven't posted as much here as I might have because of Facebook. It's terribly easy just to toss up a one sentence update on little minor events (or not so minor sometimes) that there doesn't seem to be as much need for a long-winded post. (Or maybe there is...since I'm doing one right now.) On the other hand, maybe it will let me focus my writing a little more. Who knows?

Weightlifting/swimming is going great! I'm loving being able to push myself physically. My muscles don't get sore anymore, but I do get tired. I'm pretty sure it's helping me sleep better as well.

Last little item...okay, it's a big one. Early last week I was approached by my boss's boss. Due to a large decrease in revenue from our team, we are going to lose several people. Jobs aren't being cut, they are just being moved elsewhere. Long story short, I was asked if I would be interested in a Facilities Manager type position, as the person currently doing that type of work is the Executive Secretary and she no longer has the time availablity to do it. I said yes, and was officially offered the position yesterday. So, even though I had a recent promotion, I'm moving out of my current role into a completely different field.

I'm excitied but also have a bit of that "deer in the headlights" feeling. The transition doesn't happen until next week, so it has been massively chaotic around here as we scramble to reorganize the team. I'm finally out of customer service! Currently, the position is only for the building here in town, but it will grow to include all the other offices across the country. It's a big opportunity for me and one that I feel honored to have been thought of as being capable for the role. There are still a lot of details to work out; although the responsibilities aren't new, the actual position is. And I'm the first one to hold it!

Workout Wonder

My workouts are going well. I'm even keeping a workout log at a weightlifting website where I can track my progress. So what exactly am I doing? Well, it's called a 5x5 workout. You start with an empty bar (in most cases) and add 5 pounds each workout. So far it has been easy, except for the bodyweight exercises (push ups, pull ups, etc.). I've been trying to work on my form so I don't kill myself as the weights go up.

It has been extremely nice to know exactly what I'm going to do when I get there. I can go it, set myself up, do my workout, and leave...all under an hour. At some point I'm going to add cardio workouts (i.e. swimming), but for now I'm just working on increasing my strength. Now that I'm doing something, I don't feel like I have to get in the pool right now. That being said, I do have a bunch of swimming workouts planned - workout that I have collected from when I was in the swim conditioning class and participating in the Masters swimming at WSU. The question is which to start with; which one will make me look the least like a drowning rat?

If I Was Unbalanced, Could I Do...This? (::insert awkward pose here::)

As a youth, I was never considered a jock or a nerd. Yes, I was athletic and yes, I did think of myself a quite smart (even if my grades didn't reflect it), but I didn't fit into either category. (Looking back, I admit I wasn't smart enough to think there might be more than two possibilities.) I had heard the phrase "jack of all trades" fairly early in life and attached myself to that - only to later hate that I was never passionate about any one thing. But that is going in a different direction than I want to go right now.

In my first year in college, I came across the term "philosopher-king" in my classical reading. This is a concept of someone who is strong physically like a traditional strongman-type "king" but who also trains his mind to be an equally strong "philosopher." The idea was that a perfect ruler would combine both worlds of jock and nerd. At the time, it was a mind-opening concept for me. Even now, I love the thought of living a balanced life of the physical, mental, and spiritual.

So, with that in mind, I've found a gym that has a pool. Now, in addition to my classic reading kick I've been on lately, I'll have the opportunity to workout as well. I'll be alternating swimming workouts with free weights.

3 Month Goals:

• Squat 150 lbs (5 sets of 5 reps)
• Deadlift 225 lbs (1 set of 5 reps)
• Bench Press 115 lbs (5 sets of 5 reps)
• Overhead Press 75 lbs (5 sets of 5 reps)

6 Month Goals:

• Squat 195 lbs (5 sets of 5 reps)
• Deadlift 270 lbs (1 set of 5 reps)
• Bench Press 135 lbs (5 sets of 5 reps)
• Overhead Press 105 lbs (5 sets of 5 reps)

...and I'm starting tonight.

We be Wee People; who be you?

Growing up as a short kid, I got picked on a lot. It's something you learn to live with. As a youth, I still got good humored teasing about being short. (The non-good humor teasing took a completely different tack.) As a middle-aged man (I have a hard time seeing myself as "middle-aged," but there it is...) there is still the occasional look-at-me-aren't-I-funny-messing-with-Steve moments. Generally, I just roll my eyes and move along with life.

So, I come into work today and find a big plastic pot of gold (not the chocolate kind either, bah!) on my desk. Stuck in the pot is a big sign reading "World's Greatest Leprechaun!" with my picture in the middle. (It doesn't help that my ears are slightly pointy.) Everyone found it extremely funny and waited to see how I would react. I put the pot (sign and all) on the cubical divider so everyone passing by could see and sat down to start my day at work. I think it was a bit anti-climatic for some. Ah well...I fully embrace my quirks.

Now for some background (this is a story I told in a team meeting several weeks ago): I ride the bus every day to and from work. Every once in awhile you meet some...interesting...people. So one morning I was at the bus stop when a fellow walks up obviously intoxicated. He starts asking me random questions and I respond politely. Generally I ignore people like that, but this guy was inoffensive and was actually somewhat entertaining. Finally, the bus pulls up and this fellow starts digging through his pockets and says, "Now I gotta come up with a dollar to get on the bus."

I happened to have a dollar coin in my pocket and, feeling unusally maganimous, I flip it over to him and say, "Here you go!" He catches it, looks at it, back at me, and breaks into a big ol' smile. He then says, "You're my best friend ever! You must be a leprechaun - you gave me gold!" As we got on the bus, he proceeded to tell everyone there that I was a leprechaun. It was an interesting bus ride.

The Tribulation of the Choir Director

Let me walk you through my day: First, I had to cover for the Elder's Quorum President today in Ward Council. Normally that isn't a big deal, but since we have the early session this year, I had to be at the church at 7:00 a.m. That means I had to get up at 6. Again, not that big of a deal. However, since the choir was performing today in sacrament meeting, we had rehearsals before church started at 9:00 a.m.

Right after Ward Council, I called home to make sure everyone was ready to be picked up. No worries there. So I race home to find out that Benjamin had thrown up in the 15 minutes it had taken me to get home. Leslie had to conduct Primary today so couldn't stay home and I had to direct the choir so I couldn't stay home. We quickly decided that I would take the non-sick kids to sacrament and then I would come home and Leslie and I would switch.

With the kids loaded up we raced back to the church, thinking I was going to be late for the choir rehearsal. Two people showed up. Two. Normally no big deal. But we haven't practiced in the past few weeks due to several different issues. (Is Valentines day really an excuse to bail out on choir? I mean, church gets out at noon and if someone REALLY needs to be with their spouse that bad that they can't stay for the 45 minutes after church we have for choir practice, who am I to say otherwise?)

So there I was, sitting in sacrament with 4 kids wondering if anyone was going to bother getting up when it came time for the choir to sing. Lucky for me, they did. Not very many, mind you, but at least there were some. (I may be overreacting, but it seems like our ward choir has been getting smaller and smaller since I was called as the director. Meh...whatever...) We sang "Love at Home" - first verse in unison, second verse guys on melody and women on the alto line, and last verse in all 4 parts. We sounded like a typical small ward choir. I'm not judging, but I do have to keep reminding myself that none of us are professionals and with so few of us, I have to really scale back on my music selection (like strictly out of the hymn book. Luckily we have a fantastic piano player who is able to embellish the accompaniment beautifully.

A quick 15 minute run back home saw me rushing in the house and Leslie out of the house. The car engine was never shut off and I felt like high-fiving my wife while yelling "You're It!" Ben was asleep and the rest of my morning was fairly quiet. I think I was supposed to go home teaching today as well, but my companion and I never really touch base with each other and, since I wasn't really at church today, I didn't think about it until just now.

As a brief follow-up from my last post, apparently everyone in my entire world has a facebook account. Who knew? There is a lot of stuff that I just don't quite understand yet and (justified or not) there are a lot of things that the privacy freak in my head is screaming about. (i.e. I wouldn't mind playing a game or two on there, but when it asks for permission for some third party to access my personal information I tend to say, "Huh, what do you know? I didn't want to play that as much as I originally thought...") Overly paranoid? Possibly. I've accepted this about myself. I'm not sure how much I'll use it, but there it is. If someone wants to get in touch with me, they now can.