Week 1479

I have been listening to a lot of Mark Bell’s Power Project. I like them as they are incredibly open-minded and seem to care more about exposing themselves and others to potentially helpful information than they do about dogmatic ideologies. 

I find that I am very turned off by dogmatic views. When someone unflinchingly talks about a belief as fact with a clear demonstration that they are unwilling to consider other realities, it kind of disgusts me. 

With how much humans and society has progressed in our lifetimes, it feels ignorant to believe that anything is fact and yet we go through life being taught everything that way.

Facts are facts until we have sufficient knowledge to disprove them. 

Which means they are limited to our current knowledge levels. Given how much the world has progressed in recent history and the fact that we are able to live better than medieval royalty currently, it’s pretty likely that we still don’t know shit. 

The more we learn and progress, the more you would think we would realize that. 

Now that I am done with that rant - this past week was a lot due to all of the disruptions over the previous couple of weeks. Life has kept me busy and I’m okay with that. 

I had great workouts this week minus my Saturday workout where I was feeling a bit fatigued so I wasn’t lifting as heavy as I wanted to. 

I crossed back over 230 for the first time in a hot minute but the pace of gains was a little high so I didn’t try to sustain the high weight. 

I need to be more consistent with measuring my body to document the growth that I am experiencing as I have been monitoring this visually through muscle/striation visibility. 

I am fully bought in to doing a lean bulk for over a year at this point as I prefer not to fluff up where possible - I’ve been really vibing with my physique. 

I have been upping the caloric intake for the dogs the past couple of weeks as Tru has been looking skinny and Ellie could afford to gain another 5 pounds or so. Truman seems to constantly be itchy and I am against the idea of putting him on allergy meds forever so I will likely have him try another diet. 

We have tried raw, hydrolyzed protein, fresh, and dehydrated this year and I am currently feeding them Ollie’s and Sundays for Dogs daily. While I could feed all fresh for a comparable price, I like the convenience of knowing they can process a dried food if we have to board them when traveling. 

Hank, our Neo, died from DCM which ultimately progress to a-fib and heart failure. While vets blamed his diet and there being pea protein, that just feels illogical to me. I believe I impacted his quality of life by not taking him to exercise enough which contributed to an unhealthy lifestyle that impacted his heart. If we look at heart failure in Americans, there is a correlation to obesity (understanding that doesn’t equate to causation) but I would venture to guess that is, in part, why heart failure seems more common in dogs. 

In short, poor diets and sedentary lifestyles in humans equates to dogs with a similar/worse quality of life for man’s best friend. 

All this to say, I am increasing my intentionality with walking the dogs and Ellie pulls like a mother-fucker when she sees rabbits…. Another thing to work on as this drives be absolutely insane. 

Oh - this also coincides with my need to routinely average 8k steps a week so go team! 

Also, she is in tact as we are in a guardianship contract and homegirl is… frisky… Also doesn’t realize that her being on top does nothing for nobody… Truman’s about as ignorant as me (foreshadowing) and thinks that she is just trying to wrestle. 

I had a killer week with my sleep with a handful of nights with over 8 hours despite a tremendously busy plate at work and it felt soooooo gooood. Sleep is one of my favorite things and I have noticed that I feel so much better when resting

I have also noticed that exercising when I feel tired instead of taking naps if I have had a good night’s sleep has been really nice and I can get through my afternoon slumps pretty well doing that. 

With my full-sized SUV revelation, I really don’t look forward to spending a stupid amount of money on a large vehicle so I have solidified that as something that I need to save for so I can at least not have a payment for it. I still think the convenience outweighs that amount of my life I have to give up to have it. 

I have been watching a lot of anime - My Hero Academia, Dragon Ball Z, and just started back up with Chainsaw Man. I have been listening in Japanese and having English subtitles and have been enjoying that as I still get listening work while understanding a bit more of the shows. I know that’s not a preferred method by input practitioners but I like it. 

I was also more consistent with catching up on Wanikani and typing out the example sentences. It seems like this is helping now that I can actually read and understand the sentences. 

I still would like to be fluent by my 30th for a trip to Japan. 

Sunday, I helped Syd destage one of her first stages in a retirement/older person neighborhood on a golf course. It was one of two stages there, one of which was her first ever, so it was a bit bittersweet but it’s been so fun to watch her. 

She’s about to stage her first home over $1 million on her own and it had previously been purchased for $1.3 so we are really curious what it will go for. 

I’m so proud of her. 

More importantly, we got to celebrate her birthday and spent some quality time together!

While walking the dogs Sunday afternoon, I saw a stray kitten and tried to befriend it so I could kidnap it and bring it back to our lair to domesticate it and force feed it only the highest quality cat food (we feed Darwins raw cat food). 

I built trust with it tossing it treats until it got right up next to my foot and I, brilliantly, grabbed it like I was going to put it in a bag and never return it to the streets. Only, I didn’t have a bag. I had my bare hands that it proceeded to shred and bite with it’s tiny wittle murder mittens and wittle teefies that managed to puncture through my finger nail as it peed/sprayed me. 

As we stared at each out momentarily before it resumed the onslaught against my naked hand, I realized that bringing this feral little munchkin into my house would cause a commotion in which I was ill-equipped to resolve. 

So I, like many well-intentioned ignoramuses before me, left this poor youth on the streets with more trust issues than it had before it encountered me. 

My failure, a learning opportunity to use better equipment or more patience in the future. 

I was in a rush as it is getting cold out here and I don’t want the poor baby out alone in the cold. 

Anyway, I ordered a heated cat house and water bowl on Amazon and plan to stick some smelly food in there in hopes of being forgiven for my ignorant transgressions and to provide a shelter for when it snows. 

Will update if cat is saved from the streets and our damaged relationship is mended. Or if it sees me and avoids me at all costs.

Food:

Saigon Tokyo: Gyoza 7/10 - we get this every time, Tokyo Fried Rice mid/10 (don’t get again - not worth the calories), owner veryfriendly/10

On the Border: The Borrdurito ilikethisburritomorethanicaretoshareonline/10

Nothing Bundt Cakes: Pumpkin Bundtini 10/10, Carrot Cake Bundtini 10/10, everything else notasgoodbutstillprettydecent/10