Cinco de Mayo

My lunch. I feel that it is very much like Cinco de Mayo. Something like it came from Mexico, and the USA just took it, tweaked it, and made it there own. It might not be so exciting to our neighbors to the South, but that's okay.

From what I understand, Cinco de Mayo is a celebration of a military victory over the French. I guess that's why it's not so celebrated in Mexico. It's kind of like being in High School and celebrating beating up a sixth grader. I mean, who really wants to celebrate that? Even the French have defeated the French. For my favorite synopsis of France's military, read here.

Now on to other stuff. My oldest had his final orchestra performance last night. They sounded really quite good. The only bad part was sitting in a High School gym with no air conditioning, and trying to keep the other kids calm.

Due to the concert, I hit the gym in the morning. My only problem with this is making the train on time. Usually it takes me about 50-55 minutes to finish my workout, but if I wanted to get home, showered, and to the train without being late, I had 45 minutes. I told our trainer that up front, and he was nice enough to remind me. I completed everything except the final ab workout. I made it half way through that. I was happy with that result.

I now have two areas on my body that are sore. The first is my back. Two days ago we did a lot of rows, and my back muscles feel it today. We varied the rows between a lot of exercises, including the "push up, row, row". This exercise is just kind of awkward. You do a push up with a dumbbell in between your hands, or you do your push ups with a dumbbell in each hand. When your arms are extended, you perform a row to your waist. I decided to have a dumbbell in each hand, as I would get a little lower on my push ups. The only problem was the dumbbells kept sliding out from under me on the floor.

The other part of me that is sore is my rear end. We did some good leg workouts yesterday, including a jog, squats, touch and reaches, and walking lunges. The exercise that really seemed to get me though was "bag hops". We had a heavy punching bag flat on the ground. You stood over it, with a foot to each side, and then put one foot on top. You then just jumped and moved the foot on top of the bag down to the ground, and the other foot on top of the bag. We use this for a soccer warm up quite often, only with a soccer ball. I started feeling it last night, but this morning as I walked to the train I couldn't help whimper a bit.

The weather is nice, so I'm going to head outside for a bit. Have a good day!

The Ides of March

Yesterday was a long day! We had to have our youngest up to the hospital at 6 a.m. for some dental work. The dentist needed to put him under for her safety (he would barely sit still for her to look in his mouth, let alone drill and put in fillings.) We took the opportunity to have a sedated hearing test done on him at the same time.

Before we got started, they asked if we would like to give him some Versed to take away any anxiety and make it easier for the Anesthesiologist. We thought that was a good idea, so they gave him some, and he immediately calmed down, and sat on his mother's lap stoned.

The Anesthesiologist did something that hasn't happened before. He let us go back into the operating room with him while our youngest was going to "sleep". If I'd have known that we could go back, I would have opted out of the Versed.

After we finally got to the waiting room, around 7:30, we were in for the long haul. They called my wife back to post op around 9:45, and let me go back a little after 10. He slept until 11:45, and we didn't get out of the hospital until noon.

The sedated hearing tests revealed what we already assumed. He has a mild to moderate hearing loss in his right ear. The only tones his right ear hears normally are in the mid range, low and high tones are muted to him. He had eight cavities that had to be filled, including one crown, so he has a silver tooth.

We then had to run some chores, help kids with homework, and general nuttiness until the start of our oldest's Orchestra performance. It was pretty cool, they had five elementary schools and a jr. high orchestras there. It was about 45 minutes, but they sounded great. I'm stoked that my oldest is going to continue in Orchestra next year.

By this time I was exhausted, but I still had to hit the gym. I went in for a 30 minute workout that prodded buttock, but I felt really good after.

Maybe that is really why Julius Caesar should "beware the Ides of March". It is a busy day!