PAIN!, OK here we go again….

So I’ve decided I was going to do something insane.  Come mid-May, I’m going to pick up a 180 lb log that’s about 16 feet long, and throw as far as I can.  Now, as you might imagine, only the Scotts could come up with something as insane as this – it’s call a Caber Toss.

I’ve been lax on my workouts for a while now – I might do one every two weeks at best. Dealing with the farm and various other things, I’m not exactly sedentary, but I’m also not doing any of the stuff I should.

Then I talked to a friend who’s going to be dealing with a scottish festival here locally – which should be announced late next week, depending on if he gets me the information to finish the website.

I don’t have a bucket list really – at 38 years old, I’ve probably not even hit the half-way point for my lifespan, based on my family history.  And I kind of plan on putting off death as long as possible anyway.  But I do have a list of things I’d like to do – the caber toss has always been one of them.  And lets face it, you don’t get a whole lot more manly than wearing a kilt and tossing a big ass log.  Unfortunately, I’ve never been big enough to do it – and realistically, I’m still not.

So it’s training time.  I’m on day 4 (well, it’s after midnight, so day 5) of my training.  To say I’m pushing muscles hard is an understatement.  I actually popped capilaries in both biceps last night.  And my pain started from just below my ass to just above my neck.  Everything hurts.  On the other hand… good lord I can tell it’s made a difference.  I’ve reverted back to 16″ biceps already.  (At 17 inches, I will finally allow myself to get a tattoo after I can afford it 🙂  I may hurt, but damn I feel massive.  And if I really do manage to follow through with my current workout plan, I will BE massive – picking up 180 lbs isn’t hard. THROWING 180 lbs 20 or so feet is! (BTW – I don’t know if that’s what the caber will weigh.  A practice caber is 85lbs, and 14 feet long normally, but caber used in a tournament is anywhere between 100 and 180 lbs, and 14 – 16 feet long.  I’m going to find out ahead of time 🙂

I do plan on doing the rest of the events too – hammer throw, or whatever else is going to be there.  But the caber toss is what I’m really after.  And I figure I have met my other goal – by my birthday this year, I wanted to be “done” with building myself up.  Though, that damned gut just won’t flatten enough to satisfy me, I think!

And if you’re wondering – I don’t plan on winning, just doing it and not looking TOO stupid doing it.  There’s no way in hell I’m going to beat some of these guys who do this a lot more often.  But if I pull it off I’ll be happy to have done it – and love the side effect this particular training will have on my body 🙂

Yeah, I can already see this one coming.  There’s about to be another “interesting female” in my life, I think.  I did the service call (pizza, beer, and $30 to fix a router), and we chatted for a while.

Start off with, she’s got a damned cool place, and a really cool dog 🙂   It’s a second story apartment in college hill in one of those houses where people turned the upstairs into a place for rent.  She’s got a very cool sense of style, based on how she decorated the place – I was pretty impressed.

I got dressed up for a service call, I’ll admit.  Nice shirt, etc.  Hey, might as well leave a good impression, just in case she did happen to be interested, right?  Anyway, I get there, and she’s dressed fairly nice – she commented that it was “a casual day”, dress wise.  OK, now, she didn’t LOOK casual – she was actually dressed quite nicely, her hair was done, makeup on, etc.  But I really didn’t think too much about it – it’s not completely unheard of for a customer to be dressed up when I show up at an in-house service call (particularly female customers) and she’s got a job that requires her to be pretty dressy most of the time. 

It didn’t take long to get things up and running, and we sat down and enjoyed supper together – not only did she get pizza, she also got salads for both of us (from Knolla’s pizza. YUM – they know how to make a good salad, and damned fine pizza!)  And before I got there, she had to find out what my favorite beer is (Rolling Rock is my preferred beer for “easy drinking” – it doesn’t make ya’ feel bloated), and got a 12 pack of that – for me alone.  She was drinking wine (I was sure to tell her that next time… I mean, if she happens to need to get me over here again, wine is just fine.  She grinned a bit at my stumble.)  And she sent the Rolling Rock home with me, so I’ve got beer in the fridge – bonus! 🙂

She had commented at one point about getting a wireless adapter for her printer, and that I could put that in on my followup call.  I grinned a bit about that – I don’t normally do “follow up calls”, but I might make an exception here 🙂

When I was leaving, I was just at the doorway, and turned around “So do you still want to do Final Friday?”  A broad smile came on her face as she nodded and said “Yes”

There was something about the smile, and what the event is.  Really, up to that point I really didn’t really see anything I felt was any indication that this really could turn out to be something interesting.  But… well, the theme for this Final Friday is “The Art of Relationships”.  And that smile was one of those “really looking forward to this” sort of smiles.  Hm.  

Who knows – might turn out interesting, it might be nothing.  But the next day, I decided to go just a little bit out on a limb and send her a txt:  “Hey – the next time you’re looking for some company and a wine to drink, give me a holler.  I’ve got a bottle of Erath Pinot Noir lurking in my fridge, and I don’t drink wine alone – I’d be more than happy to bring it over and share it! :-)”  I got a response back of “Thanks, Davis!”  OK, well, that didn’t tell me much! 🙂  

I probably shouldn’t let myself get distracted at the moment – money is tight, and I really need to get Workout2L and a few other iPhone apps out the door.  But ya know, on the other hand, a distraction that would actually turn into something for once would be nice.  Not gonna hold my breath here though. 🙂