This three-day weekend I’m not sure if I’m coming or going. Morning workouts usually mean my my brain needs a nap in the afternoon, and sometimes my brain doesn’t turn back on after the nap. I’m not real sure if I’m coming or going. And even worse, two beers last night and I was very tired this morning. TWO. Actually, there’s always been some small quantity that makes me even sleepier in the morning and I think I must have hit it.

My buddy Deren is back from Maui, where he moved a year ago, and he’s on a rampage. He wanted to climb Mt. Adams tomorrow, Mt. St. Helens on Monday, rest Tuesday, and then do another mountain on Wednesday. I was invited on the Mt. Adams trip. I, however, looked things up on the intarweb and Mt. Adams looked hideously difficult. Well, long, if nothing else. So we were going to get up at 4AM and try one of the mountains in the Olympic Peninsula where there are supposed to be avalanche warnings.

I was wondering if this would wreck me for work next week when my sister reminded me that the plumbing contractor was coming and all I was responsible for cleaning out the basement before he arrived. And since I may be in Japan in a week, I wasn’t allowed to do anything tomorrow except moving crap around the house. So much for testing out Deren’s assertion that chicks dig guys who climb mountains. I suppose I could always lie about what I do on Sunday. Chicks seem to end up with guys who lie whether they dig them or not.

In the past few years, I either go outside to watch the fireworks from the hill above the school, or get invited to someone’s boat. The boats are the best way to see fireworks close up. So that means either hobnobbing with the yacht owners at the Columbia River Yacht Club or with the giant-house-small-boat owners in Lake Oswego. I have been unable to gain enough brownie points to hang out with the yacht club people, but my buddy Deren came back from Hawaii to visit his parents in Lake Zero and invited me to watch the fireworks from their boat.

If it wasn’t for friends inviting me out on the 4th of July, I’d be on the hillside across the street. It’s quick, it’s easy, there’s no crowds, and it has the added benefit of being able to watch the rich kids set off their expensive fireworks in the school yard. And I can go hide at any time, since it’s usually overcast and drizzly on the 7/4 in Portland.

My buddy Deren also convinced me to go with him to hike Mt. Adams. I’m actually dreading it a little because it sounds hard. Anything that requires that kind of exertion and getting up early sounds like bad news to me. I have to stay awake at work, after all. Weekends are for sleeping, not working that hard.

I took a long lunch today and planned on leaving work early, but I left later than I usually do. Phooey. Last night we had a thunderstorm about 2AM and that didn’t do anything for my beauty rest. And believe me, I need a lot more rest.

I was supposed to go to a pre-wedding party tonight but there was no way I could drag myself out to a hipster bar. One drink and I would have been napping in the corner. Ah, well. I’m almost through with the last mystery I had saved up. I have to go out and get some more.

I’m definitely taking the next day off from the gym. I was tired before going and it was terribly humid. My shirt was actually squishing during the workout.

And with that I don’t think I have anything else I can squeeze out of my tiny brain tonight. Hooray.

My sister text messaged me last night and apparently she had a drowned rat in her toilet. She was going to have me drive across town and take care of it (I was thinking I needed some tongs or something) but she had her friend, A LAWYER, take care of it. Fortunately the lawyer just tried multiple flushes and the rat was gone. Hooray.

I’m as tired as ever, and last night when I was falling asleep someone set us up the bomb. It was a hugely loud explosion and annoying as hell. And then my allergies were bothering me in the morning and I could barely stay awake at work. Ah well.

For those who think I just surf the web all day at work, here’s a silly dance that’s strangely inspiring that I got at work. It’s best when you click on “watch in higher quality”. Also, a blog posting about Char Burger, where we didn’t end up eating after our hike on Sunday.

I should be asleep, but it’s Monday and the Food Network is taunting me with, “Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives.” I’m a big fan of greasy diner food and am haunted by cheeseburgers. And fried chicken. Basically, anything that’s bad for me and is at odds with all the work I do at the gym. I know Mark the Yoot is able to practice culinary self-denial, but I just know that anything with flavor is bad for me and I like to eat bad things. Really, that’s about the worst thing I do. Fortunately, the best bad food appears to be in the South, and I don’t get down there all that often.

I should also be in bed because I’m as tired as everyone else I saw at the gym. It was hot, humid, and still last night and a lot of people didn’t get much sleep. Plus, that hike yesterday took a lot out of a lot of most of us. At least I’m still standing. Here’s another stolen picture of me from the hike where I’m holding my magic Skittles.

I went on a hike with people from the gym today to Dog Mountain on the Washington side of the Columbia River Gorge. It was rough. For one thing, it’s a bazillion degrees today (less than yesterday, but 90°F+ is still hot for me) and the trail is straight up. It was only 3.1 miles but 2800 feet of climb, or so the intarweb says. It took us two hours to get up the hill and it was STRAIGHT UP. No switchbacks, just straight up. Very much like the other fire trail I’ve been up before. We went up the “harder” trail because the guide book said it was more scenic. When we came back the “easier” trail, it seemed way more scenic and also had flat spots instead of being a straight up slog.

The way back down was a lot more pleasant, though once I got close to the edge of the trail and I met a rattlesnake who was making noises at me, but the noises didn’t bother me. A couple of venomous fangs in my leg would have bothered me. Oh, and my sister also told me the other nickname for Dog Mountain is Tick Mountain and that I should make sure I don’t have any hitchhikers.

In any case, my brain was once again fried and all I can do is tell you to watch this.

I’m an Oregonian, so 65°F and overcast is fine weather. Today it officially hit 99°F so that usually means it was a couple of degrees warmer in the city. It’s only in the 60’s in San Francisco and I’m fantasizing that I’m there. I went to the gym in the morning and by the end of the day I as feeling a little sick. I don’t tolerate the heat too well.

I’m going to get up early tomorrow for a hike. Unfortunately for me, it’s a bazillion degrees in my bedroom and it’s so close to the 4th of July that kids are setting off fireworks in the field across the street. Hooray.

I left work early after being in meetings from 8AM until 3PM. On the way out, I heard a guy talking about chemotherapy and I thought, “That’s a club I don’t want anyone else to join.” Tonight my friend told me that her boss was just diagnosed with pancreatic cancer today. I’m not sure what I can do but hope for the best. I suppose that’s an advantage of being religious, always having something you can do.

Other than that, nothing spectacular is happening in my life. Work continues to humiliate me, I’m still going to the gym and posting weak times, and the most exciting thing I did this afternoon is take a nap. That’s what I need. More sleep.

I’m trying to improve my performance at the gym. In the past my kettlebell swings were kind of awful so I had to work on those. Now my squats are a weak point and I have to figure out what I’m doing wrong. I’m thinking of setting up a web cam so I can watch myself. When I was down at San Francisco Crossfit doing back squats, I could see what the other people were doing but I couldn’t really tell what I was doing just by feel. I have gizmos and I may as well use them.

I got a call from our friend the contractor and his plumber is all set to start work in a couple of weeks. The biggest problem is that we have to move all our crap out of his way. The plumbing shouldn’t be so bad, but the next step is probably the electrical system and that’s going to be a mess. We’re going to have to empty out most of the first floor somehow. I suppose there’s no sense in worrying about it until an electrician comes in and looks at things.

In the mean time I can worry about other things like why I keep crashing my computers (it’s because I’m screwing with them) and why I was so crabby at work this morning. I think I was tired and my blood sugar was low. Probably more on the tired than the blood sugar, but at least it gave me an excuse to eat an English muffin with peanut butter.

Under Doodiehead’s law, section 27A of the Crossfit Act of 1933, as amended, and section 21E of the Exercise Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, this blog must comply to standards of communication that limit risk factors. The Private Useless Blog Reform Act of 1995 provides a “safe harbor” for certain forward-looking statements. This blog must now include a form of a disclaimer that states that any instance of a forward-looking statement found in this material is only true at the time it was written, and further claim that I am under no obligation to update such written statements if conditions change or that unexpected occurrences happen to affect the statement afterwords. Such forward-looking statements, however, must be identifiable by the use of certain prescribed words.

Sentences and phrases are forward-looking statements when they include any tense from present to future or similar inflection. Words, such as “believe,” “estimate,” “anticipate,” “plan,” “predict,” “may,” “hope,” “can,” “will,” “should,” “expect,” “intend,” “is designed to,” “with the intent,” “potential,” “Eggamuffin,” “bacon,” “boobies,” the negative of these words or such other variations thereon or comparable terminology, may indicate forward-looking statements, but their absence does not mean that a statement is not forward looking.

Basically, the Head Honcho told me I scared off some of his customers by pre-annoucing that we were doing the “Fight Gone Bad” workout, something he’s been telling us all week long. I am now prohibited from making such forward-looking statements. From a totally selfish point of view, I think I did myself a service if I did scare some people off. The gym was packed again.

I’m afraid I did a bit poorly tonight and I’m acting to improve my performance by practicing my squats. Really, that’s the only thing that’s going to help. Kneecapping everyone else to make myself look better without improving my own score is out of the question: there are too many others and they’re all younger and quicker than me and there’s no way I’d catch them if I was carrying a tire iron or whatever it is that Tonya Harding’s crew used in her infamous attack on Nancy Kerrigan.

I bet I’d do better if I just got some more sleep, but that isn’t about to happen soon. That would require common sense.

I’ve been falling asleep all day, even at work where I was running around trying to answer customer questions all day. But here I am up late again and I don’t even think I have a good reason for it. Perhaps I can blame it on the stress of work but mostly it’s poor time management. Plus, I can’t seem to get to sleep very soon after working out.

Tomorrow is another “benchmark workout” at the gym. In fact, it’s called “Fight gone bad.” Just thinking about it makes me want to hide in bed all day, so I better just quit the typing and hit the hay. That would actually make way more sense than anything I usually do.