More Reboots than Hollywood

I never thought I would be interested in any type of exercise.  Even as a kid, I loved sports and competing, but I hated the exercise that went with it.  I dreaded football practices and the coaches call to run.  I never minded the running while playing, but the running in practice filled me with dread.  First of all, I am a big guy.  Big Joe isn’t a nickname that was ironic; it is pretty much who I am.  I am slow when running any distance further than 10 yards.  Yep, I was a lineman.  I also love bowling and shooting, two other sports not exactly known for their physical demands.  That’s not to say that there aren’t any; you bowl and shoot better when you are in shape.  I hated the exercising that came with those seasons as well.  It’s not just running or cardio, I hated lifting weights.  In my mind, I could never find the motivation to train.  I was always good enough without training.  That’s not to say I excelled at everything, but I was good enough that coaches never pushed the issue.

 

One day years ago my wife and I bought bikes.  We thought it would be a great way to get in shape, always a constant struggle.  On a normal blog, that would have been the moment of enlightenment and the story would jump to the “and we ride everywhere all the time.  The end”.  Not so much here.  We went to Martha’s Vineyard and almost died while trying to climb the one small hill.  Katie never rode again.  A few years later my son was born.  This caused me to look at my life a little different.  I needed to make better choices and try to instill good habits.  It is his life that is important, and I don’t want to be the dad that messes it up.  I quit smoking when he was born.  That was huge for a three pack a day smoker.  That summer I started working a job that gave me days off during the week.  I started riding the bike in an effort to find exercise that fit me.  I started to ride, but not all the time.  I still hadn’t found it yet, whatever it was. 

I did my first charity ride last year.  I realized that I had better train before attempting my first ride.  I had a short lay off from my job and started riding most days on a Rails to Trails section off the East Coast Greenway.  That’s when it happened.  Out along the trail in the sun I found that thing that I don’t mind doing.  Then I hit a hill and wanted to go back home.  The first day I did eight miles and thought I was going to die.  By the end of the summer I was able to ride the 25 mile Hartford Parks Tour.  It was a big accomplishment for me, but one I took a little too seriously.  I started to think it was the end of the journey, not a way point.  I kept going to the gym to ride the exercise bike and told myself it was the same.  Not so much.

This spring I got back out and realized just how far off the exercise bike was to the real thing.  Since then I quit the gym and bought a bicycle trainer on the advice of a friend.  Now I can ride my bike attached to the trainer when the weather turns against me.  It has made a huge difference.  I also decided that I needed more motivation for training and signed up for two charity rides this fall. 

Things were going great up until my company merged with another utility and my contract was not renewed.  This year I am laid off again and it is not a short term lay off this time.  I have been riding as much as possible in an effort to clear my head when the job search gets rough.   I decided that this blog will be a way to use some of my unexpected free time to chronicle everything that is going on with my riding, and my life.  I am going to focus on cycling, but there will be some minor detours into all sorts of silliness, like life, unemployment, twitter, and whatever else pops into my head on rides.  Hopefully I can learn something along the way…..

Well, That Failed

Well, let’s try to reboot this thing, shall we?  I am trying to blog, but I am still stunned by the idea that people would read it in the first place.  I always feel like I am shouting into the abyss when I take the time to blog, but that might be the point.  Maybe by blogging I will find the point in blogging.  That sounds stupid, but if I were afraid of doing that I shouldn’t be doing this.

First things first, this page needs some content.  Short of hiring a real writer, I guess that will have to come from me.  I am going to try to be prolific rather than exceptional.  If I write enough, something will have to be good.  Failing that, I would like to be entertaining.  Failing that, I would like someone to read this and tell me I suck.  I am going to try to update at least once a week.  If I can’t think of something to say in seven days, I have bigger problems than writing an uread blog! 

I am going to try to stay away from a few topics, mostly because they bore me.  The first is going to be my ongoing effort to get in shape.  I might mention it from time to time, but let’s not dwell on how fat the author is.  It’s boring to you, and depressing to me, unless I am making fun of myself.  Then it is still depressing for me.  I am also going to stay away from blatant political blogs.    We don’t need to get into arguments over who is right and who is wrong.  We might talk about a situation, but let’s keep it in the middle.  I am sure lots of other people would like to talk about that.

Mostly I think I will just talk about things that are interesting to me, and hopefully someone out there will be interested in reading that blog.  We will see with the next installment!

First try on the treadmill!

Well, the conversion from office to gym is just about complete.  The treadmill is in and reassembled.  The tv is all wired and hooked up.  The rest of the furniture is moved out or around and we are ready to go.

The treadmill was the biggest part of the conversion.  It was by far the most difficult.  We had to bring it up from the basement to the second floor.  It turns out those things are heavy, or at least heavier than I thought it would be!  It is a fairly nice one with motorized incline, so there are a couple of electric motors and they are heavy!  My father helped me bring it all the way upstairs.  We thought it would be harder to get it out of the basement than to bring it up to the spare bedroom, but we managed to get it to the ground floor without a problem.  After that it got interesting!  We took it up the stairs to the second floor one step at a time.  Each time we would rest the treadmill before going to the next step.  Each time we rested it, the treadmill gouged the step it was sitting on.  Once I get it shape I need to fix the stairs!  Actually, all they need is a little sanding and re-staining and they will be good as new.

After all of that I didn’t want to skip using it, I would feel bad after all of the work it took to get the treadmill up and installed in the room.  I managed to use one of the personal training programs, so I ended up doing a mile and a half in thirty minutes.  Not bad for the first day!

New Plans

One of the reasons I started this blog was to document my progress and share my struggles trying to lose weight and get healthy.   Once Brennen was born I realized that I needed to change my life so I would be around for him through High School and College.  I am not saying that I wouldn’t make it living the way I have been, but the odds aren’t good. 

I need to change a lot of things about the way I am living before I would ever say that I am acting healthy, and I might never get there.  I think everything is relative.  If I cut 500 calories out and start doing 25 sit ups a day, it has to be better than not doing those things.  I have managed to quit smoking, and that will probably be an ongoing topic for another day.  I am about eight months into cigarette free life, and that is seven months and twenty nine days more than I ever thought I would be.   

So, here’s the thing.  They do not call me Big Joe in some ironic calling the huge guy “Tiny” kind of way.  I am tall and fat.  I find that it helps to be blunt about things.  Any time you are well over 300 pounds you can call yourself fat.  I have started to do some crunches and stretches most mornings, but that really is just helping my back.  My stomach isn’t really shrinking at a good rate, or really at all.  I think it is time to kick things up a notch. 

I am starting to convert my office into a gym.  At least a gym-esque room.  I am going to take all of the bookcases out and move the desk over to one side.  I am going to put a treadmill and some soft floor in to be able to walk all winter and still have a place to do some crunches.  I will post some pictures once I finish of before and after so we can see how it came out!  Wish me luck!

I am also going to keep track of my progress on the blog.  My goal is to run/finish without dying the 2011 Manchester Road Race in Manchester, Connecticut.  I am going to start using some programs on my iPhone to train and I will talk about them on the blog as well. 

Wish me luck and I will keep you informed!

Election Day

Well, here we are a few days ahead of the November Election.  It is time to once again choose the lesser of two evils, or at least the person that you dislike the least.  I think it’s sad that it has gone this far, or sunk this low, depending on how you choose to look at elections.  Shouldn’t elections bring out the best in people?  I thought name calling and lying about what happened yesterday stopped being acceptable behavior in first grade?

I don’t want to get into any particular race, or pick on either party.  Each party are as guilty and pathetic as the other one.  My main point in writing this post is to decry the general state of politics, especially this election cycle.  There seems to be so much divisiveness and petulance over the most ridiculous topics that most people have failed to see the larger issues.  That is a little sad, a little scary, and exactly what each candidate wants.  I will not claim a conspiracy; that would be stupid.  These people can’t work together to form a conspiracy; they can’t even talk to each other without attacking each other’s mother’s virtue and indistinct family lineage.  I just think that most, if not all, of the current crop of politians are inept and unfit for office.

Douglas Adams once said that the last person that should ever be allowed to be president is the person running for office.  There is definitely something different about anyone that chooses to run for any office these days.  It must be equal levels of narcissism and optimism.  A modern politician is a person that believes that they are the best person to be in charge, even though they hire image, policy, and election consultants.  They want the power to shape the world but are unable to answer simple policy questions without a committee of experts to blame later.  They must believe that one person can’t possibly be expected to run for office and have the knowledge necessary to do the job, there simply isn’t enough time in the day to do both!  They also believe that people will understand that.  These candidates for office also hope that the people smart enough to forgive their lack of knowledge or situational ethics will be dumb enough to believe what they claimed about their opponent in their last negative advertisement. 

I don’t think any of that is anything new, but the radicalization of the above is.  Political races are centering around issues that are stomach churning.  Gay civil rights, illegal immigration, and creationism are just a few.  I do not understand why some people feel that it is appropriate to tell someone that they are less worthy than the person standing next to them.  I really don’t understand how people can argue religious belief as a science.  What’s worse, I can’t understand how so many other people will rally around this idiotic views and claim the moral high ground.  I would really like to think that a vast majority of Americans would believe that what religion you practice, who you love, or what color you are just doesn’t matter.  Each may shape you as a person, but what you are doesn’t define who you are. 

I am saddened that all of this foolishness is grabbing headlines when there are real issues out there.  There is still at least one war going on, depending on how you count wars.  There is record unemployment.  There are homes being lost at record rates.  I wish candidates would focus on that instead of trampling human rights of minority groups.  Heck, I wish they would focus on those issues instead of outright lying to us about their opponents!

I think the time is right for a new party, or better yet, new leadership in both of the existing parties.  Let’s hold them accountable for what they say and do.  Let’s vote for people that don’t make us ashamed, let’s vote for the ones that make us proud.  I think we need to demand better choices at the polls.  I think we should ask “why” more.  When a Politian claims that a group of people shouldn’t be given certain rights, we should ask why.  When they say that it would be too hard to change laws to accommodate people, we should ask why.  When they say that it is impossible to spend within a budget, we should ask why.  When they say they haven’t read a bill but they need to vote for it, we need to ask why.  Then every November we should let them know what we think about their response to our questions.

On Tuesday I am going to try to find people worth voting into office.  I am going to choose based on who they are and what they stand for.  I am not going to get caught up in the negative ads and the lies they tell.  I am going to have done my research and vote with my head and heart.  Please do the same.  We don’t need to agree, but we do need to agree to be civil and respect each other.

Who am I, and Why am I Here?

                Well, that is always the million dollar question with blogs, isn’t it?  I guess the short answer is Joe Johnson, otherwise known as Big Joe.  That’s something that needs changing, but more on that in a minute!  I am a dad to Brennen Connor and Katie’s husband.  I recently started the transition from full time environmental consultant to part time contract worker. 

                The new schedule and new additions to my life have made me pause to try to asses where I am, and that is part of why I am here.  What better way to think about where you are than to write it down and look at it?  There will probably be some posts on this, but maybe not that many.  Sometimes I think that being too introspective is not good for anyone but the writer.  Since this is a public blog we will try to stay somewhat entertaining.

                A large part of what I want to focus on is being large.  I am trying to make some healthy changes to my life, and part of that was accomplished when I quit smoking.  I will circle back to that in a separate post.  It wasn’t easy, but it was a little complicated and I want to get into that in depth another time.  The next thing I need to do is loose A LOT of weight.  I am finding it extremely difficult to stay motivated and I am hoping that this blog will help. 

                I am also trying to learn to be a dad, and some of what we will talk about will concern that.  Some people seem like they always know what to do and when to do it, I am not one of those people!  I find that most of my first thoughts are wrong and I get “the look” from my incredibly patient wife.  Thank goodness for her or I shudder to think what would become of my poor child.

                Lastly I am here for a good time.  Wow, that sounded much ruder than I wanted it to.  I would like to enjoy my time writing the blog and hopefully, if I ever have readers, I would like them to enjoy what they have read.  I can’t promise to be overly serious, but I can promise that it will be fun to write and read.  There will be lots to talk about along the way, but it is important to me to get back to writing. 

                Look for updates everyone Monday and Friday, probably around evening.  I would like to say that I promise to work enough ahead to post every morning but I am writing this at one o’clock in the afternoon of a post day.  I am not inclined to procrastinate, but it happens from time to time.  J