my ultimate team went up against the best team in the league last night and i f'd up my knee :-( basically, i was defending a guy who was a handler, which means he wasn't running around a lot, making cuts, but instead stayed back and would make most of the throws up the field. anyways, he was walking up the field and a teammate of his had the disc. since my guy wasn't running, i decided i'd watch the guy who had the disc to see if i could anticipate his throw and step in for a block. i had a great look and right as he threw he looked at me - making me hestitate (cause i thought maybe he'd rethink his throw seeing me there) and i awkwardly laid out to block his pass. i missed my block, jumped up, and got back in the play. after the point was over i went to the sidelines to rest. after i was rested i went back out and after a couple seconds of running around, noticed my knee was bothering me. i looked down, and sure enough, it was swollen. i got ice on it right away, and it didn't hurt too bad, but the swelling looked terrible. my teammates saw me there with the ice and asked what happened, cause they hadn't seen anything. all i could tell them was 'i don't know, but i think blah blah blah.' injuries suck. especially knee injuries. makes me rethink having knees at all... (name that quote!)
so after the game i went home, popped 3 advil and went to the bar for a delicious cold drink, hobbling like a true gimp all the while. my friend matt stopped by this morning and lent me a brace which i've worn all day. it prevents me from moving it around too much, which is probably good.
on to other news...
he'll probably be writing about it in his blog soon, but colin has a 46-inch flat screen lcd tv on the way, as well as a blue-ray disc player. he's earned it through his 'job' playing poker. the site we play on offers a rewards program based on how much you play and after many months, he's accumulated enough points. when he was getting close, he really started to put in the time so we could get it by the time becker, justin, paul, and keith get down here so i ended up playing some sessions on his account as well to help out. colin plays higher limits than i do, because his bankroll is larger (for now ;-)) so it was fun to play on his account against a little tougher competition. well, i say 'tougher competition,' but really, there are still quite a few terrible players at his level. anyways, we're getting a sweet tv!
the weight gain stuff has been going well. i weighed myself yesterday after my workout and i'm already up to 152 pounds. that's 9 lbs in two weeks. i know the plateau will begin soon, and every pound will be harder earned from here on out (especially if i'm unable to do some of my leg exercises with my stupid, lame knee) but i'm happy with the progress so far.
well, that's about all i got to report on for now. it's gonna be a busy week, with lots of performances and visitors and excitement so i'm sure i'll have a lot to write about in a week or so. be sure to stay warm up der in the cold eh.
love,
james
Saturday, January 26, 2008
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
the 90s
so i found this on a forum that i frequent and i couldn't help but laugh as i read down the list. i'm sure a lot of you can identify, and if you can't, well, you missed out...
You're a 90's kid if:
You can finish this [ice ice_ _ _ _ ]
You remember watching:
-Doug
-Ren & Stimpy
-Pinky and the Brain
-AAAAAAAH Real Monsters!
-Rockos modern Life.
-Cow & Chicken
You've ever ended a sentence with the word "PSYCHE!"
You just cant resist finishing this . . . "Iiiiiiin west philidelphia born and raised . . ."
You remember:
-TGIF
-Step by Step
-Family Matters
-Dinosaurs
-Boy Meets World.
You remember when it was actually worth getting up early
on a Saturday to watch cartoons.
You got super excited when it was Oregon Trail day in computer class at school.
You remember reading "Goosebumps"
You took plastic cartoon lunch boxes to school.
You still get the urge to say "NOT" after (almost) every sentence . . . not
when everyhting was settled by:
-rock paper scissors or
-bubble gum bubble gum in a dish or
-daddy had a donkey inky binky bonky.
when cops and robbers was a daily activity.
when we played Hide and go seek until our legs grew numb.
when we used to obey our parents
You used to listen to the radio all day long just to record your FAVORITE song of ALL time.
"Where in the World is Carmen San Diego?" was both a game and a TV game show.
Captain Planet. He's a Hero.
You knew that Kimberly, the pink ranger, and Tommy, the green ranger, were meant to be together.
You remember when Super Nintendos and Sega Genisis became popular.
You always wanted to send in a tape to America's Funniest Home Videos . . . but never taped anything funny.
You remember watching Home Alone 1, 2 , and 3 . . . and tried to pull the pranks on "intruders"
You remember watching:
-The Magic School Bus
-Wishbone
-Reading Rainbow on PBS.
You remember when Yo-Yos were cool.
You remember those Where's Waldo books.
You remember eating Warheads.
You remember watching:
-the 1st Batman
-Aladdin
-Ninja Turtles
-3 Ninjas movies.
You remember Ring Pops.
You remember drinking Surge, and Tang.
Oh, oh, oh! and JOSTA!!!
If you remember when every thing was "da BOMB!"
When they made the new lunchables so that you could make pizza AND tacos.
You remember boom boxes vs. cd players.
Making those little paper fortune cookie things, and then predicting your life with them.
You played and/or collected "Pogs" :)
You had at least one Tamagotchi, GigaPet, or Nano and brought it everywhere.
. . . Furbies (yes, we hated them THEN, too).
You haven't always had a computer, and it was cool to have the internet.
And Windows 95 was the best.
You watched the original cartoons of Rugrats, Power Rangers, and Ninja Turtles.
Michael Jordan was a king.
YIKES pencils and erasers were the stuff!
All your school supplies were "Lisa Frank" brand.
You remember when the new Beanie Babies and Talking Elmo were always sold out.
You collected those Beanie Babies.
Carebears
Gak was the coolest stuff invented.
Lambchop's song never ended.
The old dollar bills.
Silver dollars, which were cool to have.
You remember a time before the WB.
You collected all the Troll dolls
If you even know what an original walkman is.
You remember wanting to sit on the orange Nickelodeon couch.
You've gotten creeped out by "Are You Afraid of the Dark?"
You know the Macarena by heart.
"Talk to the hand" . . . enough said
You always said, "Then why don't you marry it!"
You went to McDonald's to play in the playplace.
You remember playing on merry go rounds at the playground.
Before the MySpace frenzy . . .
Before the Internet & text messaging . . .
Before Sidekicks & iPods . . .
Before MIKE JONES . . .
Before PlayStation2 or X-BOX . . .
Before Spongebob . . .
Back when you put off the 5 hours of homework you had every night.
When light up sneakers were cool.
When you rented VHS tapes, not DVDs.
When gas was $0.95 a gallon & Caller ID was a new thing.
When we recorded stuff on VCRs.
When the spice girls were cool.
When we called the radio station to request songs to hear off of our walkman.
When checking out drawing books and that one book about the rainbow fish from the library was THE cool thing to do.
You had slap braclets!
i would probably add zubaz, starter jackets, and the song 'whoop there it is' to the list. can anyone think of anything else?
love,
james
You're a 90's kid if:
You can finish this [ice ice_ _ _ _ ]
You remember watching:
-Doug
-Ren & Stimpy
-Pinky and the Brain
-AAAAAAAH Real Monsters!
-Rockos modern Life.
-Cow & Chicken
You've ever ended a sentence with the word "PSYCHE!"
You just cant resist finishing this . . . "Iiiiiiin west philidelphia born and raised . . ."
You remember:
-TGIF
-Step by Step
-Family Matters
-Dinosaurs
-Boy Meets World.
You remember when it was actually worth getting up early
on a Saturday to watch cartoons.
You got super excited when it was Oregon Trail day in computer class at school.
You remember reading "Goosebumps"
You took plastic cartoon lunch boxes to school.
You still get the urge to say "NOT" after (almost) every sentence . . . not
when everyhting was settled by:
-rock paper scissors or
-bubble gum bubble gum in a dish or
-daddy had a donkey inky binky bonky.
when cops and robbers was a daily activity.
when we played Hide and go seek until our legs grew numb.
when we used to obey our parents
You used to listen to the radio all day long just to record your FAVORITE song of ALL time.
"Where in the World is Carmen San Diego?" was both a game and a TV game show.
Captain Planet. He's a Hero.
You knew that Kimberly, the pink ranger, and Tommy, the green ranger, were meant to be together.
You remember when Super Nintendos and Sega Genisis became popular.
You always wanted to send in a tape to America's Funniest Home Videos . . . but never taped anything funny.
You remember watching Home Alone 1, 2 , and 3 . . . and tried to pull the pranks on "intruders"
You remember watching:
-The Magic School Bus
-Wishbone
-Reading Rainbow on PBS.
You remember when Yo-Yos were cool.
You remember those Where's Waldo books.
You remember eating Warheads.
You remember watching:
-the 1st Batman
-Aladdin
-Ninja Turtles
-3 Ninjas movies.
You remember Ring Pops.
You remember drinking Surge, and Tang.
Oh, oh, oh! and JOSTA!!!
If you remember when every thing was "da BOMB!"
When they made the new lunchables so that you could make pizza AND tacos.
You remember boom boxes vs. cd players.
Making those little paper fortune cookie things, and then predicting your life with them.
You played and/or collected "Pogs" :)
You had at least one Tamagotchi, GigaPet, or Nano and brought it everywhere.
. . . Furbies (yes, we hated them THEN, too).
You haven't always had a computer, and it was cool to have the internet.
And Windows 95 was the best.
You watched the original cartoons of Rugrats, Power Rangers, and Ninja Turtles.
Michael Jordan was a king.
YIKES pencils and erasers were the stuff!
All your school supplies were "Lisa Frank" brand.
You remember when the new Beanie Babies and Talking Elmo were always sold out.
You collected those Beanie Babies.
Carebears
Gak was the coolest stuff invented.
Lambchop's song never ended.
The old dollar bills.
Silver dollars, which were cool to have.
You remember a time before the WB.
You collected all the Troll dolls
If you even know what an original walkman is.
You remember wanting to sit on the orange Nickelodeon couch.
You've gotten creeped out by "Are You Afraid of the Dark?"
You know the Macarena by heart.
"Talk to the hand" . . . enough said
You always said, "Then why don't you marry it!"
You went to McDonald's to play in the playplace.
You remember playing on merry go rounds at the playground.
Before the MySpace frenzy . . .
Before the Internet & text messaging . . .
Before Sidekicks & iPods . . .
Before MIKE JONES . . .
Before PlayStation2 or X-BOX . . .
Before Spongebob . . .
Back when you put off the 5 hours of homework you had every night.
When light up sneakers were cool.
When you rented VHS tapes, not DVDs.
When gas was $0.95 a gallon & Caller ID was a new thing.
When we recorded stuff on VCRs.
When the spice girls were cool.
When we called the radio station to request songs to hear off of our walkman.
When checking out drawing books and that one book about the rainbow fish from the library was THE cool thing to do.
You had slap braclets!
i would probably add zubaz, starter jackets, and the song 'whoop there it is' to the list. can anyone think of anything else?
love,
james
Saturday, January 19, 2008
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
somethin' new
as most of you know, i've spent a lot of time trying to gain weight. i've always been a skinny guy and never weighed more than 154 lbs (i'm 5-9). i've always kind of gone in spurts of working out and not working out, mostly when things like time and money get in my way, therefore i've gone from being skinny to being slightly less skinny over the years. one thing i've realized is that a lot of people don't understand what it's like to NOT be able to gain weight. anytime i talk to someone about how i eat and how i workout, they kind of laugh about it and are shocked at how hard it is for me to gain. basically, they think i'm weird. ok, i am weird, but not because i want to gain weight.
there are a lot of skinny people that wish they weighed more, whether they admit to it or not and it's completely normal. being underweight can actually be unhealthy, just like being overweight can be (not that i consider myself to be underweight at the moment). and the positive effects of losing weight for a person are the same for a person who wants to gain. people who've lost weight feel healthier, fit into their clothes better, and just feel more confident in general. it's the same for me.
so what's the point of all this? well, i'm gettin' back on the routine after having taken some time off and i'm going to use this blog to track some of the progress. i know it's probably not going to make for very interesting reading, so i'll still continue writing about all the other random things i chose to write about. however, i'm also going to use this blog to hold myself accountable for my workouts and eating to help keep myself motivated. and if hearing about my workout and diet inspires others, that's cool too.
right now, i weigh 143 lbs. my goal is to reach 160 by the end of the semester. that gives me 106 days or about 15 weeks to gain 17 lbs. so what's my plan to accomplish this?
basically, i'm going to eat everything in sight and workout 3-4 times a week. more specifically, though, i'll be drinking about 3 protein shakes a day and eating 3 real meals a day that are high in protein. i'll need to get about 4000 calories a day to start and increase that as i get bigger. the workout routine consists of heavy lifting and low reps. my workouts shouldn't take longer than an hour, although they may go slightly over towards the end as i add more exercises. i won't bore you with the details of the diet and the workout, but if you're extremely curious, i'll give you the links for both.
the workout
the diet
i've used these programs before and they have worked well for me. i'm not exactly sure how i'm going to use the blog to keep track of my progress, so i'll just play that by ear. at the very least, i'll leave weekly updates about how much i've gained.
well, that's about it for now. wish me luck!
love,
james (all 143 lbs of me)
there are a lot of skinny people that wish they weighed more, whether they admit to it or not and it's completely normal. being underweight can actually be unhealthy, just like being overweight can be (not that i consider myself to be underweight at the moment). and the positive effects of losing weight for a person are the same for a person who wants to gain. people who've lost weight feel healthier, fit into their clothes better, and just feel more confident in general. it's the same for me.
so what's the point of all this? well, i'm gettin' back on the routine after having taken some time off and i'm going to use this blog to track some of the progress. i know it's probably not going to make for very interesting reading, so i'll still continue writing about all the other random things i chose to write about. however, i'm also going to use this blog to hold myself accountable for my workouts and eating to help keep myself motivated. and if hearing about my workout and diet inspires others, that's cool too.
right now, i weigh 143 lbs. my goal is to reach 160 by the end of the semester. that gives me 106 days or about 15 weeks to gain 17 lbs. so what's my plan to accomplish this?
basically, i'm going to eat everything in sight and workout 3-4 times a week. more specifically, though, i'll be drinking about 3 protein shakes a day and eating 3 real meals a day that are high in protein. i'll need to get about 4000 calories a day to start and increase that as i get bigger. the workout routine consists of heavy lifting and low reps. my workouts shouldn't take longer than an hour, although they may go slightly over towards the end as i add more exercises. i won't bore you with the details of the diet and the workout, but if you're extremely curious, i'll give you the links for both.
the workout
the diet
i've used these programs before and they have worked well for me. i'm not exactly sure how i'm going to use the blog to keep track of my progress, so i'll just play that by ear. at the very least, i'll leave weekly updates about how much i've gained.
well, that's about it for now. wish me luck!
love,
james (all 143 lbs of me)
Sunday, January 13, 2008
i know...
...i'm long overdue for an update.
last time i wrote, i was a on boat out in the ocean, but so much has happened since then, i'll just wrap that up by saying that it was an awesome experience and i'm looking forward to goin' back out.
so i'm back at school now and this semester is lookin' sweeeeet. i didn't have a ton of time (or should i say time when practice space was available) to prepare for auditions while i was out on the ship, and playing tenor the whole time wasn't so good for my bass chops, but despite all that, i managed to get 2nd placement this semester, which i was really happy about. there are many good bass trombone players here and i had never placed better than 3rd placement (or maybe 4th...that first semester is a blur) so this was a much needed confidence boost for me. ordinarily, 2nd placement would put me in the top orchestra in the spring semester because top placement is wind ensemble, but, unfortunately, the guy who got top placement couldn't play in wind ensemble, so that's where i was placed. i'm gonna miss playing in an orchestra, but the section for wind ensemble looks pretty killer. also, i get to play alpine symphony with the top orchestra in april, as it requires two bass trombones. it's sure to be one of the performance highlights of the year for me. i love that piece of music. another performance highlight for me is coming up in february. i got an e-mail from carl today asking me to play in the faculty quartet for the audition eve recital on feb. 1. seriously? i get to play in a quartet with lenthe, ellefson, and fabio (dee's sabbatical replacement)? hot damn! words can't really describe how excited i am for that.
in addition to the performance opportunities, my classes totally rock. i'm taking a history of jazz since bebop class with pat harbison and a duke ellington class with david baker. and ya know what's sweet about the ellington class? it's my last music history class ever - with david baker. i rule. yeah, so those are my only two classes. oh, and i'm taking an orchestral rep class with ellefson that meets on tuesday nights.
on to non school related things...
my ultimate team played a great game on friday night against the #1 team in the league. we held the lead until about the last 10 minutes, when the other team realized they were about to lose and started calling some really cheap stalls (a stall is when you are marking [guarding] and you count to 7 and they haven't passed the disc yet) and fouls. ultimate is played without referees so it's kind of up to the players and observers to work that stuff out. i love the attitude of my team because i think we all realized how awesome we played and it didn't really matter that they beat us. plus, i think it's just gonna make us hungrier for the next game. i can't wait.
well, i think that pretty much gets us caught up. maybe i have more stuff to write but i think i've sufficiently covered the important stuff.
love,
james
last time i wrote, i was a on boat out in the ocean, but so much has happened since then, i'll just wrap that up by saying that it was an awesome experience and i'm looking forward to goin' back out.
so i'm back at school now and this semester is lookin' sweeeeet. i didn't have a ton of time (or should i say time when practice space was available) to prepare for auditions while i was out on the ship, and playing tenor the whole time wasn't so good for my bass chops, but despite all that, i managed to get 2nd placement this semester, which i was really happy about. there are many good bass trombone players here and i had never placed better than 3rd placement (or maybe 4th...that first semester is a blur) so this was a much needed confidence boost for me. ordinarily, 2nd placement would put me in the top orchestra in the spring semester because top placement is wind ensemble, but, unfortunately, the guy who got top placement couldn't play in wind ensemble, so that's where i was placed. i'm gonna miss playing in an orchestra, but the section for wind ensemble looks pretty killer. also, i get to play alpine symphony with the top orchestra in april, as it requires two bass trombones. it's sure to be one of the performance highlights of the year for me. i love that piece of music. another performance highlight for me is coming up in february. i got an e-mail from carl today asking me to play in the faculty quartet for the audition eve recital on feb. 1. seriously? i get to play in a quartet with lenthe, ellefson, and fabio (dee's sabbatical replacement)? hot damn! words can't really describe how excited i am for that.
in addition to the performance opportunities, my classes totally rock. i'm taking a history of jazz since bebop class with pat harbison and a duke ellington class with david baker. and ya know what's sweet about the ellington class? it's my last music history class ever - with david baker. i rule. yeah, so those are my only two classes. oh, and i'm taking an orchestral rep class with ellefson that meets on tuesday nights.
on to non school related things...
my ultimate team played a great game on friday night against the #1 team in the league. we held the lead until about the last 10 minutes, when the other team realized they were about to lose and started calling some really cheap stalls (a stall is when you are marking [guarding] and you count to 7 and they haven't passed the disc yet) and fouls. ultimate is played without referees so it's kind of up to the players and observers to work that stuff out. i love the attitude of my team because i think we all realized how awesome we played and it didn't really matter that they beat us. plus, i think it's just gonna make us hungrier for the next game. i can't wait.
well, i think that pretty much gets us caught up. maybe i have more stuff to write but i think i've sufficiently covered the important stuff.
love,
james
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