More ramblings for this week.

Man, I've been straight slacking on updating this thing this week! Don't think that slacking here means that I'm slacking out there though - thankfully I'm not that cliche.

Let's see, what to ramble about today...

So this past weekend I volunteered my time at a weekend conference. It was a decent-enough time, though sleep seemed to be at a premium. The reason? Those crazy Catholics had set up a volunteer room full of baked good and fully loaded soda! Initially I avoided the Mountain Dews and brownies, opting instead of a bottle of water and... well there's no and. There weren't any healthy alternatives offered. I kind of get the sense that Jesus was a loaves and fishes kind of guy, but the diocese of Winona is more of a cookie place. And since I was there all Friday night, from roughly the time I woke up until Saturday night, then bright and early Sunday morning, I was at the mercy of them. In fact, I'd even had a McMeal as I drove in Sunday morning. Sonofabitch! Of course, no debauched eating weekend would be complete without stepping on that scale and taking my punishment, so I did. Sunday night I damn near broke my scale, clocking an impressive 259.9. Believe me, I would have shit my pants right there, but I'd already taken a dump before weighing in. Good thing too, apparently.

By yesterday's weigh-in, I was at 251. Not my lowest, but I'm fine with it at the moment. Just gotta keep fighting the battles, winning back any ground that gets lost in the daily skirmishes, you know?

Tuesday night I went to taekwondo, which I shall tend to reference as fight club going forward. First rule of fight club is that you don't talk about fight club, but fuck that Brad Pitt Shit, I've got some stuff to say!

At the 40 minute mark of class, they had us strap up in helmets and chest protectors - it was fight time! I haven't sparred in *years*. Of course, they pair me up with some black belt dude - he's the only other barrel-chested cat up in that place, and there's a certain logic in keeping the heavyweights together. That said, I'm a yellow belt and he's testing for his third dan black belt next month. However, and this is the good news, he's terrible. I did discover though that I too am terrible! I swear, I didn't used to be. I don't think. I hope. But I am now! In my mind I could see what I wanted to do, but my agility, flexibility, and skills are just gone at the moment. Basically I'm just a bull in a china shop, all size and strength but no control or precision or ability. So in an attempt to not look like a total schmuck I stuck to lots of round kicks and back kicks to his gut. He had a few more tricks in his bag, but I avoided most of them. Mostly I slid backward quite a bit as I wasn't expecting to spar and didn't wear a nutcup. I don't trust these big lummoxes to avoid kicking me in my enormous genitals (not really), and damn did he kick hard!

After two two-minute rounds, they had us switch up partners. Both he and I ended up with women. I have no huge issues sparring against women, but typically I only enjoy it when they're significantly better than me. I don't feel so bad about launching attacks at them as they're usually quite quicker than me and will avoid my kicks, so I benefit from fighting these little whip-quick squirts who continually tag me with their feet. The woman I fought was not that. She was probably 200ish, and wasn't particularly quick on her feet. However as she was significantly higher in rank, she had this annoying in-ring habit of trying to put me into different fighting situations and then offer up "coaching tips" as we fought. Fine, whatever, I know I've been guilty of that in the past myself so I went with it. However, I'm now in my third two-minute round on my first night of fighting and the reality of being 250 came into play. My tubby legs had grown quite heavy and weren't snapping up, striking as I'd have liked. She kept coming in on me, jamming my attacks. "What do you do if your opponent is this close?" she'd ask as our chest protectors would touch. My first answer is to slide my back foot backward, creating space to then lift my front leg and snap a kick into her midsection. My second answer is to slide back, then just do a jumping back kick or jumping spin heel to the dome. Unfortunately I was waaay too gassed at this point to make any of those answers happen. By the third time she'd crowded up on me and was questioning me again, I'd had enough. I just put my hands on her chest protector and... shoved. Hard. Thump - she stumbled back and her ass hit the mat.

Bull in a fucking china shop man.

At least I wasn't the only one though - that guy I fought for the first two rounds? Apparently dusted the gal he was paired up with. She walked out of her ring in tears, having been hit hard. I have some sympathy for her as the dude really did hit hard and didn't appear to have a sense of dialing things back based on skill level. At the same time, we're at fight club, you know? So move, block or counter. Bah - whatever. I'd prefer that we just keep the bulls together, let 'em bruise one another up and let us leave it at that. No need for a woman of 150 pounds to fight a 230 pound black belt with no sense of adjustment. Plus the dude's got a dickish air about him. He can snack one.

So anyway, Mon/Wed I lifted, Tue/Thur I biked and elliptical'd. I had to cut short my elliptical today though as I had an early-morning meeting. So frowny-face on that.

Hmm... I think I've run long here, so I'm just going to end it for today. Plus, I've already drank two liters of water and it's time for a bathroom break.