Foolsfitness Merry Christmas VIDEO!

A Merry Christmas VIDEO from Fools Fitness.

The Blues and a Guitar that Quacks Like A Duck!

First an odd disclaimer: to someone that might be reading this that I promised a guitar to for Christmas… (*NO* this one is not your gift, and you can’t have it… this is a different guitar! Yours is a deep red classical, and of a quite higher pedigree)

OK, Back to the blog post:

Well, I’m almost back to functional here. But the tosses and turns have somehow left me spun around and like 40 pounds heavier in about 3 months… insane, I know. after all the hard work, all that damage… I blame that wild medication reaction some, but I also have take full responsibility for me eating waaay too much and not doing gym, volleyball, or riding the bicycle… What can I say other than I just don’t feel well…

With all this bizarre stuff going on I got into a funk, I’m still in a funk…

Naturally I should start learning the guitar and play the Blues, right !?!

So let me share a story about my new hobby and not giving up…

Foolsfitness would like to tell you a story about a guitar. This is not just any ole guitar, but the kind that is destined for legend… or at the least it just has a bit of the blues injected into it through it’s tough times. I can see writing up several blues songs just about this guitar I call “Mouse” that I have starting out walking on the blues road with.

I’m talking about an old Harmony ¾ folk steel string acoustic guitar, near as I can tell circa 1984. How the little guy started out I wonder… maybe like most of his other little siblings in some hard life stuck with an abusive relationship with a kid who didn’t know any better or much care about how he treated some whim Christmas present.

Of its past I know it was bought at a yard sale, and *then* stored in a barn for years. A lady who is a friend of mine, her mother gave it to me. While it was in kindness, that I appreciate, I think she appreciated to be free of the clutter too. The mother’s husband put on a high E string as the old one had long since seen string heaven.

So I get the guitar and turn it over looking at the sunburst color on the front and deep wood grain on the back. It was proudly showing off it’s “steel reinforced neck” sticker that was peeling up and I heard something loose rattling about as I turned the guitar around. Apparently in it’s life it had also had some side work as a mouse shack. I removed a bit of fuzz and a little kernel of something I couldn’t quite reckon what it was from inside the sound hole after a *whole lot of shaking going on*…(Couldn’t resist the song pun)

These strings, or the five that hadn’t been replaced were rusted. I take it to a pal who tunes it by ear the best he can, He’s old and hard of hearing, but I’m tone deaf and can’t play a chord to sound right anyway, so I don’t much care. I figure close is just fine.

Over the next week I broke another string and while tuning it after replacement broke a third. Then broke one of other the *new* ones I just put on… maybe some bad mojo for running away with some mouse’s pad, or just ignorance on my part being new and over tuning it?

So I cut off *all* the strings and spend a night just cleaning the whole thing. I bring it to a local guitar shop who says it won’t stay in tune because the bridge was lifting, wants to charge me 25 bucks to put strings on it with also the warning that he could snap off the bridge in the process too… on a guitar that bought at J C Penny that cost that much new, and street value now is about 20 bucks! Let’s just say between two sets of strings I have invested more than what I could likely buy another whole guitar just like it for.

So I take my frustration and a new set of soft steel strings (2nd set of strings) away from that shop and hunt down *another* friend. This one a bit younger and still has that youthful “can do” enthusiasm. She takes the guitar and lets just say the old thing needed a woman’s touch. However sure enough the bridge starts prying up and she can’t keep it in tune. But she explains to me that it’s still a good starter guitar and it’s reasonably close to in tune.

I squirted a whole tube of super glue gel under the bridge to keep it from popping off and it seemed to harden enough to keep a bit better tune for a couple of weeks. I’ve become Ahab and this is my whale obsession. Yet there is something freeing about the whole thing here. I have it leaned against my bookcase and maybe because it didn’t cost a lot it’s less intimidating somehow and I seem to pick it up frequently to practice a few chords while dinner is cooking, and also I’m not afraid of leaving it out around the cat. She has NOT decided it is a scratching post (Yet?)… even though I’ve decided to call my new (er old) guitar “Mouse“.

The superglue turned some of the bridge wood and surrounding area white. So naturally I took a trusty sharpie marker and went to work on my guitar's shoe shine, as well as touched a few chipped color areas too. Superglue, permanent marker… hey, no duck tape yet.

As I'm starting to learn more I'm exploring the neck of the guitar a bit in playing beyond open chords... I've got a few high spots that buzz a couple of notes here and there that I know after looking very careful is not my finger position. Perhaps this will make me learn alternate fingering of notes as I'm going to have to work playing around them.

Yet in the “Blues Beggar style” (Do I even have a style yet?) I think I have developed a signature note. You could look at the guitars warped neck as irritating, and I do to some extent... but I found playing a version of the four note “I am a man” or Hoochie lick (Low E fret 3-0-3-5) the last note gives me an odd buzz. So I've been working on a pop of the string and a twisting lift off bend that makes the note "Quack" So it doesn’t have duck tape yet, but it can quack!

So in the future when you think of Quackery (or is it tom foolery?), you may just think of “The Blues Beggar“!
aka Foolsfitness
or Alan…
aka the artist formally known as any of the above and just likes to refer to himself in third person.

So the “Mouse” and I are both playing a little out of tune just fine together. It’s not as tasty as Chinese Food, but I can practice my “licks”… actually so far it seems like a bit of good therapy. -Alan

Gone Crazy, Back Soon!

I took a picture of this I saw the other day… You see before you a RV on a bus frame that has a shelf on the back that holds a full size dresser motorcycle (the kind with a dash, radio, windshield, lazy boy type seat, and floorboards.) Now that is towing a SUV behind it and believe it or not the SUV has a rack carrying two mountain bicycles!

I mentioned in a couple of posts I felt like was coming to a cross roads. I’m still being at a bit of Zen about what path of many to take. I got a bit sick and the doctor prescribed something I was hyper sensitive to, and it though me for a major loop. Believe it or not in a span of a couple of weeks I gained 20 pounds! All my hard work, then something I take that was suppose to help me sends my body in some kind of craziness. The doctor woman was freaked I was going to have a seizure and I was shaking so badly. When they loose their cool in front of you I think it must be kind of serious. She kept saying, "I'm glad I saw you today" over and over.

SO, thus… I haven’t been posting, and likely until I get back to some more “natural” state I’m going to be off. I haven’t been bicycle riding, volleyball playing, or much of anything. The whole thing really sent me for a loop. Ironically in the past when a doctor prescribed something I reacted badly to what ever that was too… I must have some kind of funny wired system that likes a specific harmony that hates anything in it?

I have been getting out a bit with a new friend. She brought me to a sports game, or rather I think dragged me a bit because she had to as her brother was getting her to go with her folks, so I could be her company. I didn’t mind it, but don’t think I’ll become a rabid fan of that sport in the future.

We might pick up guitar playing in the near future together though which I think is a great idea, especially with winter coming here. I think people focus so much on the weight loss thing sometimes they forget what they are going to put in place of the whole food thing. For me it was never just about food, but replacing it with living life more fully.

Who knows, we might make some money off the guitars. People might pay us to stop playing near them… or we could threaten to hit them with the guitars unless they give us money? Don’t forget to post your comment with ideas for our new “band” name or names of songs we should make up?

I’m leaning toward classical acoustic guitar, but she has access to two steel strings and an electric too, and her dad works as some kind electronics repair wizard who could probabally build us amps or what ever. (Ironically she’s never played her guitars… she got them as gifts last Christmas... but it's no fun to play alone) I might be able to pull off some background tracks off the internet to make something loosely resembling music if we can figure out how to play a chord, then another two chords right after it… (hey, it seemed like a good idea for a hobby at the time.)

I hope this post made some sense… This is why they say doctor’s are “practicing”... they are only people too, but I think I would have been better off just letting the flu or what ever it was just ride out naturally, then the whole medically altered prescription mess. I’ve always thought God made you a certain way for a reason, and altering it just seems like a questionable idea in concept to me.

Don’t forget that at Foolsfitness we are starting a garage band, going on tour near you soon! - Alan

VolleyBall 2nd Season Return

I returned to playing volleyball after a summer off and the first thing the coordinator said was, ”You’ve lost weight”, which was a neat little treat. I’m currently holding at about 285.5 or about 2 pounds or so up from the lowest in the blog. Not too bad.

My triumpant return to my second season of adult pick up volleyball… well, most of us were a bit rusty not playing all summer. I noticed my jump had improved, after all I’ve got less weighing me down than before!!! However, it will take time to rebuild accuracy. I’ve always joked that if a ball comes anywhere near me I can promise a hit but the direction afterward is totally a different matter.

I haven’t been blogging as much, I think partly to stressors (both good and bad) like after the car needed a head gasket *THEN* the master cylinder for the brakes went. The landlord finally pretty much finished the roof section over my part of the house last weekend. I’m hoping I can find a time stretch of reasonable uneventfulness to just sort of channel my chi so to speak.

I remember the first time last year I played volleyball, the morning after I seriously had trouble just getting off my futon to get to the bathroom and took serious consideration of giving up playing. This time, I did loose most games and I went home drenched in sweat. But the morning after was just a tiny bit sore, not much at all. Also a new perspetive that although I wasn’t playing my best I have more confidence that my skills will return in short order. I’ve always played for just the enjoyment of playing it anyway.

So what’s next? I’m not really certain. As I hover around the 60 pounds off mark I feel like there is some cross roads coming. I don’t really know what they are yet. I’ve never banned food and I don’t think I will ever start to, but maybe trying to add in some more nutritionally dense choices. I’d like to say the exercise thing will be more structured, but I’m just more of a zen type guy. I got a bit sick and the side effects of the medicine have given me a low grade headache I keep confusing for a low blood sugar hunger. Then again maybe that’s just an excuse.

Like I said, I feel like my “chi” isn’t centered and I’m coming to some crossroads but I’m not sure what’s next. I’ve been off the bicycle for a while now and I can’t pinpoint why… maybe it was just all the stress over fixing the car I can’t say. Maybe V-ball will bring me back. Then again maybe in some ways that drop of weight is slowly changing me into a different person in other ways than on a scale and I have to take some time to adjust to that too.

Some of this is that I don’t want it to be all about the numbers on a scale and know it's not. I think people get lost in the numbers and forget about the question of what’s next.

The Blogfather of Foolsfitness- Alan

Pow Wow Possibles Pouch

Above is a Micmac from the Mother Earth Creations Pow wow.(No, that guy is *NOT* me) But Below is *MY* new "Possibles Pouch"This bag I got at the Pow wow and was made by a traditional tanner with spare shoe leather. She originally designed it as a children’s bag but it is big enough to be an adult’s “Possibles Bag”. The small pouch could carry a small clay pipe and tobacco or some trading beads. I bartered with the lady for it with some of my own beads and a small otter pendant. Next I went to other traders and hunted down some bone for the tassels, and finally to yet another crafts woman who donated some glass beads and put it together for me. I gifted her a buffalo tooth and turkey feather in thanks for her work.

I think this pouch is a good illustration of our journey to become more healthy and fit. There was much searching and many stops along the way. If you look closely the beads do not mirror and match exactly, just as our journeys are not on perfect and on some ruff roads at times. I even had to switch out a couple of beads as I wanted to keep it closer to traditional and made the mistake of getting two resin ones.

I think we each carry sort of an invisible “Possibles Bag” with us in this journey. I like the name of it. Our intentions and desires are in that bag, but only if we have carefully collected them knowing what we really want. That bag can easily be filled with other things. It can only hold so much. Yet having “Possibles” in that pouch, we can’t know exactly what everything is that is in it either. There just might be more in there than we could possibly imagine! It’s only in searching and in intentional purposeful action can we try to pull that “possible” out of the bag.

I’d be great to just reach in and whip out six pack abs but it takes time to look for them, action and intention. I doubt they are in my bag. Yet a couple of years ago if you told me that racing a bicycle on a NASCAR track or seeing the two hundred’s on a scale again were in there I would have laughed at you. Who knew that was in there?! I found them with some hard searching and action.

Open up your “Possibles Pouch” and share with me what you find, and what it is your looking for if you feel comfortable with that. But at least on your own, open that pouch and think about what it is in there that you are looking for and reach for it with action.

At the Foolsfitness gym it’s that crazy Indian guy called “Wandering Mouse” who is the chief fool.- Alan

It’s Gone!

The tragedy! The horror! This travesty against Foolsfitness will not prevail! Since April 1st of last year I’ve had one “official” scale I’ve used at my work. She’s seen me after my 10 mile bike rides, buffet adventures, and we’ve walked this road together hand and scale for over a year… The company decided that it was best to use the best scale at another location with more access to the public. She left me with one parting gift to say farewell… 286.5 or just about half way to my vision of where my weight should be.

The new scale, or rather older scale came this morning to the office to replace her… like she could ever be replaced!!! This scale tried to win me over with a weight of 283. I think it’s pretty close to accurate as I have a digital scale at home. Moreover at the 59 pound off mark! Still, this scale isn’t *MY* scale.

I’m hoping to get a picture of the Pow-Wow up next post but of course wanted to share the above. Also, I attended a multicultural day event locally last weekend. I got to hear Celtic folk music and African drumming. There were booths of lots of local organizations. It’s funny, when I mentioned going to the event to a coworker she asked, “How was the food?” I answered that I didn’t partake. Sure there were food booths from cultures around the world, and now that I think about it they smelled good and might have been neat to try but I had just brought 3 granola bars to have over the day. It wasn’t about the food. Had I wanted to eat something there I guess I could have had if I had chose to, it just really wasn’t on the radar.

I think that’s part of the focus for me now that it isn’t a food question really. Rather it's not a food answer to the questions I'm asking. That’s why in the Foolsfitness pledge I say there are no “good” or “bad” foods. They just are things. Food is neither a friend nor an enemy. Some are denser in calories or nutrition… It’s the Foolsfitness UN-Common Sense, it’s not a diet at all. I don’t even like that word. It's almost a Zen transcendence where food isn't even in the question and thus it falls in order naturally.

There are no trick foods, magic pills, or workout gismos in the Foolsfitness Way. If I want pizza or soda I have some. If I didn’t that would leave me in fear over the food giving it some kind of power it doesn’t have unless I give it to it. Banning foods seems crazy to me. It gives them power when they are just things.

That’s not to say I just eat anything in any volume at all. Part of this journey is learning to understand what is sane. It goes back to the Foolsfitness Pledge of Power of the Plate, awareness, and choices. I don’t live on only cheeseburgers or just salads either. At that Pow-wow I made the choice to eat more high calorie foods in larger portions and enjoyed them... but it was a choice I made and was aware of.

In wanting to be more fit (notice I didn’t even say lose weight) I just am trying to honestly answer “Is this what I’m really hungry for?” Food fixes food problems (you need to eat to survive), but it’s just not a permanent and proper solution to some other things… It's just not the answer to some of the questions I've asked from it.

At Foolsfitness we just had pretzels for dinner!- Alan

Camping in a Hurricane

What do you during a hurricane? You go camping of course! Foolsfitness enjoyed camping at a Pow-wow over labor day weekend. There was some cool stuff going on. I hadn’t camped for a little over a year and being 50 pounds lighter made a major difference. One simple thing I noticed was just zipping up the sleeping bag. With the exception of the zipper sticking a bit that bag actually fit. I also noticed setting up and breaking down now that I think about it I neither got winded, nor needed major breaks.

It was odd shopping for food. I was actually looking for dense caloric values this time as I wasn’t sure how much energy I’d be spending. The camp site is primitive (no power or water) and I’d be active moving about a lot… although I never danced in the circle.

The weather was an adventure. The first night it was near high 80’s, then the next night the hurricane Earl’s edge neared the area. It was just a bit of wind and a few hours of hard rain. Then the next night the weather system totally shifted and I could see my breath at night.

I tried to come reasonably prepared. There is a tarp over my tent secured to trees and staked in three locations with heavy stakes. I came early to set up before the rain. The tent itself had the small pin stakes and there was a ground tarp underneath, to help keep me dry.

The people next to me had a fire pit going late at night and one suddenly screamed “What is that coming out of the hole!” I’m not sure if the heat of the fire pit helped the little turtles hatch underground but my campsite was under siege by a raiding party of turtles determined to get to the pond below me.
It was strange to hear the little guys scuffing along the edges of the tent looking for a way around to get to the water. At one point the guy at the campsite next to me started collecting them in a bucket so they wouldn’t get stepped on and after showing them to other campers in the morning brought them safely to the water’s edge. He had over 20 of them!

I’ll write more specifically about the pow-wow part in the next post but this experience really got me thinking about how important preparation is in a task. Someone in another site had to borrow a camp hammer from me at one point and I even shared some wood. I prepared for the weather and what I’d need. It took thinking and work but it was important and paid off. Isn’t it like that in working to get fit?

Also I was very moved by those little turtles. They were singularly focused to get to the pond. Even in the bucket they were constantly moving and climbing over each other trying to reach their goal with every ounce of energy they had.

Perhaps that’s a lesson for us in this journey too. One is preparation and knowing the goal. I didn’t forget my camp hammer and had camp fire could be lit with a single match. I just bought a calorie counter book the other day and maybe a food scale is around the corner. The second is the perseverance of a turtle. Just keep on going. Being prepared and knowing your goal without the effort of single minded movement of trying to get to those goals won’t get you to the sweet water’s edge!

Next post some more specific pow-wow stuff from foolsfitness.- Alan