Day 649: Stronger than my excuses.

Posted on February 15, 2012 by Zero Dean in Blog, Featured, Motivational Images | 3 Comments

“Those who think they have no time for exercise will sooner or later have to find time for illness.”

– Edward Stanley

Fitness has always been an important part of my life.

I was an active child — the woods were my playground and I’d get lost for hours exploring the nooks and crannies of my rural surroundings. I loved to read, too — and could easily get lost in books for days (and later, video games), but my mom was always ~~telling~~ making me go outside and play. And I am sincerely grateful for that.

I wasn’t into the “popular” sports in high school — so I didn’t play football, basketball, or baseball — but I did run x-country and play tennis — and like most things, I was just average at both of them. I would’ve loved to play soccer, but I went to a very small school, with a small budget, and we didn’t have a soccer program until the year I graduated.

My active youth led to an active adulthood. I didn’t play any sports in college, but I did play lots of video games. Fortunately, I also started working out at the college gym — but to be honest, this probably had more to do with it being a way for me and my roommate to ~~meet~~ see girls. Still, it did manage to provide me with a solid introduction to strength training — as well as girl watching.

Outside of watching feminine beauties ~~breath heavy~~ ~~sweat~~ work out, I also enjoyed running, hiking, biking, rollerblading, shooting hoops, volleyball, skiing, and whatever else I could do with friends.

While I have always been somewhat active, I’ve only put varying degrees of effort into consistently working out and being “fit” over the years. Though, the older I’ve gotten, I’ve consistently worked out for far longer periods of time (years) and restarted far less frequently than I used to.

But ignoring what went on before this time, I’m starting this story in January 2009. Read more Join the forum discussion on this post

‘Ten Rules for Being Human’ by Cherie Carter-Scott

Posted on February 13, 2012 by Zero Dean in Featured, Motivational Images, Quotes | Leave a comment

Ten Rules for Being Human

From If Life is a Game, These are the Rules by © Cherie Carter-Scott

You will receive a body. You may like it or hate it, but it’s yours to keep for the entire period.
You will learn lessons. You are enrolled in a full-time informal school called, “life.”
There are no mistakes, only lessons. Growth is a process of trial, error, and experimentation. The “failed” experiments are as much a part of the process as the experiments that ultimately “work.”
Lessons are repeated until they are learned. A lesson will be presented to you in various forms until you have learned it. When you have learned it, you can go on to the next lesson.
Learning lessons does not end. There’s no part of life that doesn’t contain its lessons. If you’re alive, that means there are still lessons to be learned.
“There” is no better a place than “here.” When your “there” has become a “here”, you will simply obtain another “there” that will again look better than “here.”
Other people are merely mirrors of you. You cannot love or hate something about another person unless it reflects to you something you love or hate about yourself.
What you make of your life is up to you. You have all the tools and resources you need. What you do with them is up to you. The choice is yours.
Your answers lie within you. The answers to life’s questions lie within you. All you need to do is look, listen, and trust.
You will forget all this.

Day 641: I had a date (or how I went from Baltimore to Colorado).

Posted on February 7, 2012 by Zero Dean in Blog, Featured | 5 Comments

I had a date — Monday, January 30th at 6pm — with a girl. In Leesburg, Virginia.

And that is why I am writing this blog post 8 days later in a coffee shop in Colorado Springs, Colorado (and I’ve already been here 3 days).

What? You don’t see the connection? — Well, it’s probably not what you think, so I’ll explain…

It was Monday morning (of the aforementioned date). I woke up in Timonium (think “Baltimore”, if it helps) and then made the 10 minute drive over to LA Fitness (formerly Bally Fitness) in Towson for what has become my routine hour of cardio every morning since upgrading from my 30 minute routine on November 5th, 2011 in Miami, Fl.

Don’t be impressed — all that extra 30 minutes really means is that I get to catch up on more TV series on Netflix like The Walking Dead and Burn Notice — and soon another season of something else.

So I’m at the gym — staring at myself in the locker room mirror — but again, it’s probably not what you think…

Fortunately this scenario is explained by the fact an older friendly looking gentleman walks up and comments on the clippers I’m using to cut my hair.

“That must save on your barber bill!”
“It does! The only tricky part is the back — I don’t always get it right, but hey, it’s hair, it grows back.”
“It does if you’re lucky!”, he says with a smile and walks off.

I always feel weird cutting my hair in public — even when it is in what would seem like an “appropriate” place — a men’s locker room. But I’ve also cut my hair in even weirder places like pulled over at an exit in Montana (I don’t remember why, but it seemed like the thing to do at the time) — and then there was that time I shaved in Starbucks — or the morning I shaved in the parking lot of a TGI Fridays right before this happened.

And this may be hard for people to believe — just like when I tell people I’m shy — but I tend to think of myself as a rather private person. Yes, despite the fact I’ve been blabbing about my life online for the past 641+ days.

So — being the “private person” that I am (ok, go ahead and laugh) — it also feels a bit weird when I’m doing things like shaving or brushing my teeth at the gym (though those things are certainly more common than hair cutting).

So when a stranger walks up while I’m doing any of the above and talks to me or gives me a “nodding look”, it’s kind of a relief. It at least says, “Hey, you’re not being so weird that I’m going to totally pretend you don’t exist.”

So yes, I cut my own hair (as I have many times during my trip) — and then I shaved. All this in preparation of my date later in the day. And while I was doing so, I was desperately trying not to have any “whoops” moments — at least not so soon after the last one, which was a little over 6 weeks earlier.

Day 631: I was a jerk.

Posted on January 27, 2012 by Zero Dean in Blog, Featured | 5 Comments

9:45 pm

He was still there. Leaning up against the wall in the dark. I pulled up one space over and parked. Then I stepped out of my car and walked up to the man…

“I was a jerk. I’m sorry. I didn’t let you finish. What were you going to say?”

He didn’t actually seem surprised to see me, but it was dark and I couldn’t really see his face very well.

He said, “I live outside. And I’m hungry. I was going to ask if you had anything you could give me so I could eat.”

I reached into my pocket for the 5 dollar bill I’d separated from my wallet…
Read more Join the forum discussion on this post

Day 631: Dear Self – I am working on being a better person

Posted on January 27, 2012 by Zero Dean in Blog, Featured, Motivational Images | Leave a comment

[I woke up wanting to post something positive to start the day on my facebook page. I'd previously written this earlier in the week. And as I started typing on my phone, this is what came out... word for word. I love when that happens.]

Day 628: Life is not all peanut butter and chocolate (for anyone).

Posted on January 24, 2012 by Zero Dean in Blog, Featured | Leave a comment

Life is not all peanut butter and chocolate (assuming you like peanut butter and chocolate) — sometimes it just sucks. [ And sometimes it seems to just land in your life out of nowhere <--> (Hyperbole and a Half)]

And no one escapes completely — we all have “bad times”. And that may seem obvious, but mostly when you’re not in the middle of one.

Even for those of us who seem so positive, optimistic, and cheerful all the time (something I’ve been accused of on occasion), there isn’t always an escape from hard times when Trouble — with a capital T — comes calling.

And let me be clear here, I’m not talking about the little things like burning your toast or dropping your phone or being denied entry into Canada or destroying your dream laptop with coffee or having $5,000 worth of bikes stolen or being escorted out of Starbucks by 2 police officers…

I’m talking about the times when it seems like nothing is going right — Read more Join the forum discussion on this post