Beautiful, right? When they first started laying this stuff across the Atlantic during the late Victorian, people made this stuff into souvenir jewelry:
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something i want for this blog is a log and notes on the books i've been reading, the games i've been playing, etc. here's the books i have on the go and have recently finished in the last month or so
in progress
[~30%] The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York, Rober A. Caro: just finished volume 1, mixed listening to the audiobook + reading a hard copy. absolutely a banger if you're interested in NYC or public works or systems. probably more great-man-y than would be the style today, which is interesting. it's like 1k pages long and i'm on hold for volume 2 in audio, so i expect to be reading this for a while yet. fortunately that's not a problem because it is, as mentioned, a banger.
[~20%] The Emperor of All Maladies, Siddahartha Mukherjee: extremely well written, thoughtful and interesting 'biography' of cancer. it's been slow going for me because of how wrenching the subject is (cancer itself and the medical practices and history involved). i'm back months out on hold at the library, but may buy a copy instead so i can read at the pace i want without forced long breaks like this
[~15%] Normal Accidents, Charles Perrow: this is technically a re-read for me, i read this in middle school*. it will shock you to learn i'm still getting a lot out of it on this pass, from uhh being an adult with an adult brain and context, from having worked with and within complex technical systems, and from more background knowledge about accident theory and systems thinking. very much a historical text in some ways at this point
[~5%] Cahokia Jazz, Francis Spufford: a mystery in a historical AU US - barely started, but promising and highly recommended
*i was, of course, a normal and well socialized child
finished
đź«ł Tactical Barbell: Strength & Conditioning For The Operational Athlete, K. Black: big sigh. nevertheless, i'm giving it a shot.
đź«ł You Mean I'm Not Lazy, Stupid or Crazy?!: The Classic Self-Help Book for Adults with Attention Deficit Disorder, Kate Kelly & Peggy Ramundo: pretty good. nothing earth shattering for me in here, and it is very 'published in the 90s (?) and updated in 2006'. it could use another refresh for the 2020s.
i did appreciate the authors' perspective as members of the community rather than external viewers. it is very pro adhd coaching, which is a bit chicken and egg with the authors' professions đź«ł
acquired: a newfound appreciation that i do not have to use a fax machine personally or professionally.
i continue to have many thoughts but no conclusions about school and adhd - much of the book talks about dealing with children and their schooling, trauma from struggling in school, dealing with feeling stupid stemming from school, etc. in many ways school/academics was the part of my childhood/young adulthood that seems least negatively affected by my adhd
like was i paying attention? absolutely not, i was at best doing homework for another class. did that ever seem to be particularly perceived or punished? not really?
to play counterfactuals, is this a better outcome than if i'd tanked a few classes and gotten diagnosed earlier? the pondering continues, conclusion free
i hold strong that tests are largely fake and test taking / moving in academia is a skill set almost entirely divorced from anything academic results are supposed to predict
đź‘Ž The Hands of the Emperor, Victoria A. Goddard: oof. i came away from this one extremely mixed, but on the whole negative -
i really liked a lot of the implied storytelling, and the first half or so was genuinely very good. unfortunately…the fill in for a lot of that implication wasn't as good, and big chunks ended up as a repetitive slog. frankly, it's long as fuck and did not justify the space.Â
while i think i'm generally politically aligned with the mc & author, a lot of the power fantasy of Being The World's Best Beaurocrat in the latter half did not hit for me, stepping over into very cringe west wing territory. in many ways a very funny companion piece to have read in parallel with the power broker
it seems like it was self published or maybe published by a small imprint, and, to indulge in some armchair diagnostics, imo really really could've used some work with a strong and experienced editor that the author may not have had access to. it's so close to hitting, but fell down hard for me
tbf it also probably did not help that my loan ran out at like 95% through, so i had an involuntary several week break right at the end. i was already souring before, but i came close to just dnf'ing at that point. i figured i'd see it out and i'm glad i did, but i can't recommend it
despite all this…i'm probably going to take a look at the author's other books? it was so close…
đź‘Ť Cold Clay / Mirror Lake / Twilight Falls, Juneau Black: (audio) easy, cozy mysteries. improved in many ways from the first in the series
đź‘Ť Titanium Noir, Nick Harkaway: (audio) fun neo-noir sci-fi near-ish future mystery
psa: speak to your children about the dangers of exercise. one day you're innocently struggling to install a 60lb window unit AC and pondering how this could suck less. a year later you're up at 1am on a saturday reading Tactical Barbell: Definitive Strength Training for the Operational Athlete, rolling your eyes past the billionth reference to the tactical athlete in the hopes of gleaning some useful information about combining strength training and aerobic training effectively.
you may be wondering how i got here. here's the thing:
from my observations, the landscape of off the shelf strength programming is generally…je ne sais quoi…bad. strength programming providers have invented many different approaches to creating programming that is not good. in addition to your basic completely ineffective design in the programming itself, some common themes include:
absolute incoherence in writing
substituting:
complexity for utility
obscene volume for utility
random weird shit for utility
extreme explicit or implicit misogyny, racism, homophobia, etc
getting wildly out of their lane with poor advice around nutrition and similar
much of the programming that doesn't fall into these themes is pretty basic. most things work for people new to strength training, so if you can string some sentences together and avoid going off on any unhinged screeds, you can probably pull the bare bones of a linear progression program that avoids the potholes above.
in looking more recently for a program that would let me: a) maintain & build strength b) be in and out of the gym in <<an hour c) either leave room for or also incorporate building cardio/conditioning, i was repeatedly pointed to '''tactical barbell'''. i resisted, because, frankly it looks and sounds extremely fucking stupid and offputting, and i continued to make decent strength gains and bad cardio gains.
for the last month+, i've been out of the gym after some kind of respiratory illness*, and spent a good chunk of that time thinking about programming to try out when i got back, including, finally, taking a look at '''tactical barbell''', among others.
this brings us to present day, where i'm embarking with the '''operator''' (sigh) program, 3 days a week, paired with something c25k shaped and rock climbing a few times a week.
i'm using back squat, barbell bench, and lat pulldown as my 'cluster'. i'm a little iffy on LPD there - the equivalent in the book would be weighted pullups, of which i can do Zero…but it's six weeks, if i would've been better off with a pullup progression or deadlifts, well, live, learn, keep it moving.
i'll probably throw in 3x15 curls [for aesthetics] and lateral raises [for my paper mache-ass shoulders, which seem less prone to exploding in my sleep when i give them some attention] at the end if i have time, because what are you, my dad?
i picked some training maxes based on where I was at before I got sick, and the first session went Pretty OK. it took about 35 minutes total, things were mildly challenging, which tracked with my first day back, but generally fine. i climbed + jogged yesterday doing 2 minutes running / 2 minutes walking x 5, which was also fine.
i'll probably read the follow up conditioning book this week, and maybe tweak the cardio/conditioning part of this plan based on it.
*i was tested for several things, all of which came back negative. at this point it appears that best case it will remain a mystery forever
---
my overall goals for this cycle are:
Baseline: be at least as strong as when i got sick. Be able to jog for 15+ minutes straight. Lift and jog 3x/week, climb 1x/week.
Stretch: be meaningfully stronger than when I got sick on all three lifts in the cluster. Be able to jog for 30+ minutes straight. Lift and jog 3x/week, climb 2x/week.
---
notes/preliminary review of Tactical Barbell: Definitive Strength Training for the Operational Athlete (sigh):
the good:
generally coherently written [the bar is low]
not huge quantities of explicit racism/misogyny/homophobia/etc [the bar is so so so low]
it's brief. it took me ~2 hours to read, including taking notes & setting up a spreadsheet. from that, i think i have a good handle on the program i'm planning to use, and a decent overview of the other options
it is, in many ways, very funny to read a serious and detailed roleplay style description of how a cop might use google dot com in order to find a 1rm calculator
the bad:
this is a book aimed at, in many ways, making certain types of people - among them, cops, first responders, soldiers, combat sport enthusiasts - more effective, and implicitly in some cases, more effectively violent. the rest of this bullet point is left as an exercise for the reader.
some mid opinions about nutrition and supplements - mostly not egregious, but certainly extraneous. similarly, some flawed reasoning in the explanation of the approach to training.
how many low rez images of tactical athletes would you like to see? i hope it's a lot
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
âś“ Live Streamingâś“ Interactive Chatâś“ Private Showsâś“ HD Qualityâś“ Free Actions
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lately i've been taken by the urge to Post. this seems like, frankly, a concerning symptom, which i'm monitoring the progression of. i am willing to entertain the urge for the moment.Â
 i was never a huge user of this web site, but i do have some not strictly negative memories of it and with the current Posting landscape as it is, it seems like one of my less bad options. the process of creating this account was very - if not quite terminally - off putting, so i'm keeping my expectations low.
i mostly expect to blog about things i am doing and thinking about, or am trying to do or think about. keeping track of my life by way of a public journal of sorts, i suppose. some of the things this will likely include are: books and games, amateur electronics and woodworking, existing as and renovating the body, things of that nature.
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