Getting it Right

 Just think, for most of you this is the beginning of your work week.  For me?  This is my Hump Day.

Yesterday was moderately busy in the morning, but slow in the afternoon.  Mother's Day, remember.  One of those holidays blown way out of proportion by Hallmark as a way to increase their revenue.  Not that I'm against having a day to recognize what mother's do, but now every business in the world sees it as a way of making $$$$.  I can remember when a simple card would suffice.  Those days are long gone.

Update on the angelfish eggs.  One is left, the rest have all been... eaten.  They began turning white, which indicates a fungus.  The parent fish are supposed to eat them when this happens to keep the fungus from spreading.  Mine pair didn't.  At least not until about half of them were white.  When I checked the tank this morning, there was a sole egg hanging on the side of the tank.  Of course, I've been educating myself on breeding angelfish and one sentence gets repeated over and over again:  it may take them several attempts to get the process right.  Just like people, except, from my working in retail I can tell you that some never get it right.

Playing Assassin's Creed, Valhalla, I was surprised at the depiction of so many Roman ruins left in the UK circa 875 AD.  For some reason, I had always thought there were nothing but wood structures and forts.  I was wrong.  They have uncovered the remains of Roman baths in York.  London, itself, was large enough to have a colosseum made of brick and stone that could seat 6,000.  This was not some tiny out of the way colony.  Here's some more info at Historic UK.

Remains of the London Colosseum

I saw this on NBC news yesterday, Larry Hogan, on Meet the Press, has said the GOP has turned into a circular firing squad.  Funny, eh?  This is because over the years, the Republicans have been constantly backing themselves into a tighter and tighter corner.  They celebrated Loser #45, without knowing he is nothing more than the shrieking voice of the minority.  Their numbers decrease.  They are aiming at every one who doesn't kiss his ass.  Oh, well.

And, finally, Scotland seems to be once again moving towards independence from the UK.  Good for them!

Adonis my ass or working with dumbbells

I'm sure there are some of you who think weight training is a dirty word because you equate it with muscle soreness.  I have one thing to say to you:  get a life!  Muscle soreness tells you the muscle hasn't been used in, and this is a presumptive guess, YEARS!  Most likely because you're middle aged and lazy.  "No pain, no gain" is just as true as "use it or lose it."  The choice is yours.  You can maintain the muscle you have, maybe build a little on it, or you can continue to slowly waste away.    Let's put some emphasis on the word waste.  Maybe you want to be 85 and have the muscle tone of an 8 month old baby.  I don't.  So get your ass out the sweet spot of you Laziboy and grab some weights.  Now there is something you need to be very much aware of, your age!  If you're in your mid-twenties you're probably not going to have much of a problem.  However, if you just happen to be middle-aged, like me, you're not going to want to start swinging around 25 pound dumbbells.  Start easy!  Ten pound dumbbells are fine.  In fact I'll let you in on a little secret, when you're a young, strapping Adonis having big biceps and shoulders and pecs capable off poking out some one's eye is important as hell, poundage is fine.

See, even back in the Greco - Roman days they used dumbbells

The bigger the plates the bigger the muscle.  However, if you're middle-aged, like me, your days of even dreaming of looking like one of the statues above are long gone.   However, if you lust for six pack abs and don't mind working your balls off there just might be hope for you (slim hope to be sure).  The truth about abs like that?  We all have them, they're just covered in body fat.  The truth of the matter is that you should be more concerned about muscle maintenance at this stage of your life and lower weights is the way to go.  The results you want are strength not size.  Muscle mass disappears as you get older, this is normal.  The only way to keep your muscles from doing a fade out is to work them and when you work them it should be a repetitive routine.  This doesn't mean you should stick to low poundage, medium (for your body weight and size) will work just fine.  You just need to workout regularly, on a fixed schedule, otherwise all you will end up doing is wasting your time, which is the type of thing a porko deluxe might do.