The Anti Hustle

Well there is a new term out there called quiet quitting and it is basically the antithesis to the Hustle mentality.  The let's do more, learn more and take on more responsibility mentality has given way to the "I'm good" mentality and I understand completely.  You see my family is full of hustlers and over achievers - people that started their own business, traveled around the world, gone back to school to get more and more education, and for the most part I followed similar paths. I took one of the hardest under grad majors in college, was willing to work whenever for my employers (including being locked in for 12 days once), go wherever was needed and learn what was needed.  All in the hopes that I would continue to ascend the ranks.  However, my ascension was a dealt a critical blow earlier in the year.   The plant manager was relieved of their duties and several people in the plant had mentioned that I should take the position.  I pondered on it, and long story short I decided that for the people that worked there and for my own benefit  - if I was going to work another 20 years - that I should go for it.  The bad news is that I was never offered the position.  Never interviewed. Never even asked what I thought should happen and I am the most senior person now at the plant.  Instead someone was brought from a completely different country, who was already a manger at another plant, and given this plant.  Within 3 months the production manager was fired in the name of "safety" and I vehemently disagreed with that decision.  So now I have gone from potential plant manager to person who doesn't get asked about any decisions that affect the plant.  And who gets most of the fall out... me. Unfortunately when people get fired they take all their experience and knowledge with them, and simply replacing a body doesn't replace the skills.  So 6 months later I'm still at the same job, basically zero prospects to improve my position as I've learned first hand and facing a decision.  And here is where things get tricky.  If I no longer like my job should I look for another job?  The problem is if I leave the hustle starts all over and quite frankly I am over the hustle of it all especially if there is nothing to gain at the end of the day.  My mentality has shifted to - what do I need to retire and it is actually a much more welcome idea than what do I need to accomplish to move up the ladder.  Heck I don't care about the ladder any more.  The only bad thing is if I keep doing my job as effective as I have been other people will continue to look good and benefit from my work.  Not a huge fan.  But by the same token I can't sink people because the would wind up sinking me.  So this no hustle mentality is really a fine line of push the ball down the field, just don't let it go backwards and use your position to fill your goals outside of work.  Don't make work your goal.  So what if you get a promotion, get moved up.  Are the making statues of you?  Are they writing books?  Who's reading those books or looking at your statue?  If it isn't something you truly enjoy, then why do it?  Well I need that money, yo. Right we still need to be employed and as awesome as it would be to just walk in and hand in the notice you really can't just quit to do nothing.  At least not with a family.  So can I eek out an existence here, not ruffle feathers, and just get to the finish line?  I mean once you come to the reality that your not going to be the CEO and I have no desire to be the CEO, you have to be content with what you are doing, but content isn't happy.  The bad thing is after you get to this point I don't know that you can be happy working.  I have a ton of other things I would rather do - run, work on my house, make trips.  I for sure don't want to miss anything my daughter is in, especially not for this place.  I don't want people to lose their jobs, but I also don't want to work myself to death.  The biggest  thing that I have noticed in the last 6 months is that no one is really interested in helping me.  People just want stuff from me.  But I want stuff for my self.  Mostly I just want to be free to do what I want to do, novel idea right?  If I start somewhere else the hustle comes back, which I wouldn't mind the hustle if it was something I really wanted to do.  Just right now, after 22 years of work and 5 years of education, I'm good.  I don't want to learn a new facility and new rules, I just want to focus on me and my family and what I want to do away from here.  If I could announce pro games and make a living I would do that.  I started doing high school last year and the response has been really amazing.  I have fun, and I find myself thinking about announcing stuff rather than other things.  It has been a welcome distraction from the stuff I have been dealing with for my mom and the work stuff.  Don't get me wrong, I am glad that I hustled as much as I did and I grateful to have a supportive wife that didn't complain and let me do what I had to do without making me feel bad.  But I feel bad about missing opening days, missing my son run in a local race or the first race of season.  I've been taking time in the morning to complete breathing exercises, do some yoga and lift some weights and I feel better about myself doing that than getting to work 15 minutes earlier.  I mean I'll put my time in, but with a phone I get messages and e-mails 24/7 so sometimes it is hard to switch off, but I try to only respond during work hours unless it is an emergency or one of the people who has helped me.  Well I that's enough for now.  I'll check in later and let you know how this new mental approach works.  Also sorry for the long paragraph, there should probably be a break in there somewhere...

Travel Chronicles chapter 109

So this video got flagged on Youtube because I go a little in the weeds on vaccines.  Here's the thing, after a certain point of census in theory, when you push things out to the real world the theory gets replaced by data.  And for any data references I have mainly been using the Covid tracker over at World o meters - COVID Live - Coronavirus Statistics - Worldometer (worldometers.info)  They have all the data as far as new cases and deaths and it seems to track pretty closely with Johns Hopkins stuff but is a little easier to navigate for me.  So just basing some things from that DATA and drawing some conclusions besides the feel good stuff coming from the "consensus" I see that there was a spike in cases in late summer which is odd because more and more people had been getting the shots and as you go on the cases should become less if the vaccine works.  But there was a funny little caveat that they included with the vaccine that it wouldn't stop the spread, but would decrease the chances of death and severe illness.  Ok fine.  But normal vaccines stop stuff.  Polio vaccine - stops polio, small pox vaccine - stop small pox.  Covid vaccine - doesn't stop it necessarily.  And you can see that in the data.  But when you mention that it doesn't stop it and cases are still going up despite increased vaccines you get a warning for "misinformation" even though by all accounts the data says the vaccine is minimally effective against spreading it and there is absolutely no way to verify how sick someone would have gotten without it.  Would they have died? You honestly don't know.  I had Covid, I was sick for about 5 days. Never had a fever, never had the muscle aches, lost taste and smell and was tired.  That was it.  The big question to me from this video is why didn't we work on cures for the infection? Any time someone suggested something they were met with ridicule and venom - oh antibodies won't work just get the vaccine, invermectin is for parasites etc. I'm not saying I have the cure, but when there is only one solution for a global problem that seems ludicrous to me.  Anyway here is my back door attempt at this even though blogger is google and youtube is google.  Enjoy.

LOL it's too big.  Ok have to find another way.  hang in there.

Definitive Marvel Movie Rankings 1-25

So after the release of Shang-Chi I have decided to sit down and rank the Marvel movies in a definitive list.  This is the end all be all list for how the movies should be ranked.  Qualifiers - this is more about the story of the movies and how they relate, a little bit is recognized for nostalgia and more credit is giving for the movies that did the heavy lifting early on without a whole lot of cross over potential.  Here we go...

25) Thor the Dark World - face it, if you were going to rewatch any Marvel movie this is near the bottom.  How did they even get the ether into a stone?

24) Hulk - No jokes, not the same Hulk as the rest of the MCU.  There actually is a lot that may make it out of the this film - Abomination, Thunderbolt Ross, but as of now not a whole lot came out of this movie - including Edward Norton.

23) Iron Man II - First sequel of the MCU but gets kind of scattered in the story.  does introduce Black Widow.

22) Thor - Watch it again.  This movie just doesn't hold up. The kiss is cool though.

21) Black Widow - Ruined Task master, B.W. character was already dead, just severely mistimed. More of an origin story for her sister which no one asked for.

20) Captain Marvel - This movie would have been better if it wasn't all flash backy.  Also she comes off as a bit of a Mary Sue.

19) Guardians Volume 2 - Kind of a crazy story, I know it is comic booky, but the story is just so darn creepy.  Plus the first one was so good, but hey baby Groot.

18) Captain America the first Avenger - Let's face it, it was an origin story, the big bad was meh.  Cool stuff with Tony Starks dad, but does the time line fit for that?  Tony was born in the 70's so for his Dad to be working on stuff in the 40's would make him like in his 60's when Tony was born.  Oops.

17) Ant Man and the Wasp - Kind of required reading for End Game and a nice introduction of the Wasp, but who was he fighting here?  Everyone kind of ended up on the same side and Ant man ends up in the quantum realm.

16) Iron Man III - No real connection to the other films, depressed Iron Man isn't that fun to watch.  Kind of reminds me of the 5th Harry Potter film. Necessary, but you may not watch it again.

15) Dr. Strange - Crazy visuals, but an origin movie.  B.C. is awesome and embodies Dr. Strange, but the big bad - Dormomu ? is a little under developed. 

14) Avengers Age of Ultron - It's important to the future of the MCU, but fighting a robot doesn't have that satisfying feeling.  But hey Vision.

13) Black Panther - Once again this is about the Movie itself.  Michael B. Jordan is kind of the star of this movie and he is the bad guy.  The rules are a little confusing for the suit and how the power is transferred but BP is cool and the action is on point.

12) Captain America, Winter Soldier - Another Cap movie and coming to the realization that Bucky wasn't dead. Black Widow is in this one too.  Could move up, hey on your left.

11) Ant Man - Cool comic book character, more on the comedic side which a comic book movie should be.  New Powers and Hank Pym who is so crucial to a lot of Marvel Lore.

10) Spiderman Far from Home - No real cross overs, Sony takes a little better care of the individual character movies cause they have to, plus they are building the sinister 6. A little disappointing with the actual lack of a super big bad, but Jake G is pretty good here.

9) Shang-Chi and The Legend of the 10 rings - If you like choreographed fighting this is top notch for Marvel.  Like the story - it is a comic book movie after all, and I feel like he is going to be the leader of phase IV and what Marvel does going forward.  New Iron Man.

8) Iron Man - The original, started it all.  Character made it through and was instrumental to the whole story.  Probably not the best movie, but the importance and what it allowed is unmatched.

7)Spiderman Homecoming - Like I said Sony does a little better job and after the 3rd reboot of Spiderman I think they finally got it right, plus the Iron man cross over is awesome.

6)Avengers - The first team up movie, first look at Thanos, but no Spidey keeps this one down a little bit.  But still a great movie.

5) Thor Ragnarok - Let's call this the perfect amount of Hulk, hilarity and team upness. Asgard gets destroyed, Thor losses an eye real consequences.  Odin dies and the reference to Point Break never gets old.

4) Guardians of the Galaxy vol. 1 - The only Marvel film that was so good I had to see it twice it the theater.  The first real infinity stone movie, Thanos featured prominently, talking tree and racoon - how can that go wrong.  Also killer sound track, just everything about this movie is great.

3) Captain America Civil War - Airport sequence, Spiderman joins the MCU and Black Panther shows up for the first time.  Avenger on Avenger crime is real, and the cracks in the team that are left at the end of this movie allows Infinity war to happen.  Cap fighting Tony at the end, this movie does have a lot of memorable scenes.

2) End Game - Real consequences are finally delivered on.  It kind of undoes a lot of Infinity War, but we say farewell to Tony, Cap and Black Widow.  Well sort of Black Widow as she had the stand alone movie after this. But there was a ton of pay off, and it was well done. Also fat Thor.

1) Infinity War - A super hero movie where the bad guy wins. So much to finally payoff in this movie, the last big team up and all of the infinity stones are finally put together from 22 other movies.  Just so much build up to this movie that it was almost impossible to fail and there were real consequence for some - basically just Vision (and even he came back on Disney+ so who knows).

Travel Chronicles Chapter 21ish

Talking about collective consciousness, different brain wave states, and how to get in the zone and postulating that perhaps being  in "the zone" is a link to the collective unconsciousness. 

New 5k PR

Picked this up on Sunday -

Didn't feel too bad afterward, and my average heart rate was 163 or so which was about 15 beats below my average when I ran in July, and this was about 1:30 faster.  The weather was about perfect though, maybe a little on the cool side, would have been good to have running sleeves instead of running with a long sleeve shirt.  Less sun though probably helped keep the heart rate down.  I was also probably 5-7 pounds lighter than I was in July so that should have helped.  Still need to drop about 20 more pounds, that should help get the time down more especially if I can hold on to muscle.  I think what I am doing is working just a matter of grinding some more and putting work in.

Travel Chronicles Chapter 12

It's Chapter 12, even though I say 11.  Today we talk about morning routines.

My routine if I had time and wasn't rushed for anything:
1) Wim Hof Breathing.

2) 10 min. meditation
3) Cold shower (start warm and end cold)
4) Breakfast or skip this step for now
5) Yoga
6) Quick weight lifting

Travel Chronicles Chapter 11

Talking today about weight loss and a couple of things that have helped me lose 30 lbs. over 4 years and 17 lbs. over the last year.  TLDW:
- Be honest with how many calories you are actually in taking.
- Use more calories than you intake, but don't starve yourself.  Your body will actually burn up muscle first if you aren't using the muscles and preferentially hold on to fat (crazy right, come on body do what I want).
- Any weight loss is going to starting by changing your routine.  I hate the word diet, because those are temporary.  You got into the situation you are in because of how you are eating and how you are living.  If you want to lose weight and keep it off you have to make a lifestyle change.
- Fat comes off easiest with aerobic exercise or exercise where the heart rate is in Zone 2 -3. A high heart rate will push you anaerobic and it will just burn up glycogen stores.

 Part B Subset ii

Travel Chronicles Chapter 10

Travel Chronicles Chapter 9

Travel Chronicles Chapter 8

Travel Chronicles Chapter 9

Travel Chronicles Chapter 7

Travel Chronicles Chapter 6

Travel Chronicles Chapter 5

Chapter 5 Part 2 subset A

Travel Chronicles Chapter 4

Did China lie...

Travel Chronicles Chapter 3

Remember the #Hawkeyes

My Upward basketball season has just ended and this was one of the best teams I have had as far as kids listening and doing things and they just played as a team.  It was so heart breaking the way the season ended, we lost by 2 to the number 1 seed of the tournament and we were the 5.  The kids were in tears, Peach was in tears, I totally didn't cry.  I was close but I was just so happy with how hard the kids played that no matter the result I couldn't be upset.  You see  it was the second game we played that night, during the week and we did everything we could.  The game ended for us on a turnover well 2 turnovers actually as the game was tied with 30 seconds left and some how they other team got the ball and the best kid on their team got a free layup with 10 seconds left.  So I called timeout, and told we were going for the win, we were going to shoot a 3.  So I drew up a play where a kid would dribble left and hand it off to another kid and he would shoot it.  Well the one kid came up to early and the other kid threw it off his back and it went back court for a violation.  The moral of that story is - practice a desparation 3 point play so that the kids aren't caught off guard in the last 10 seconds of the season.
This team was special and I wrote a while ago about how a team becomes a special team and while I'm not sure how or when it happened this team definitely had that, and I wanted to foster that and keep it going as long as I could.  I have coached or assistant coached the last 8 or 9 years in upward, coached some civic basketball, and learned a lot along the way from other coaches and on-line and I don't think I could have got as much out of a team before this season.  I never really coached before 10 years ago, but have coached all the way up from T-ball, baseball, basketball, and even some flag football.  I do enjoy helping kids get better by teaching them what ever I can, but Upwards is a special kind of challenge because practice time is limited.  I had one other team that I felt somewhat comfortable yelling out plays, but this was the first time I ever accomplished it at the 3/4 level.  Not saying they executed the plays perfectly every time, but it kept me involved in the game and I think they got better at things as the season went on, and started expecting things.  Maybe I'm more organized now, but there was a feeling of something kind of organic and you could tell the kids were buying in.  We didn't really have a go-to-scorer per se that I could just get the ball to and say go get me a basket.  A lot of points came from our defense were, we would get a turnover or rebound and push the ball, but if we had to run a play or get someone a shot we did.  One game we came out and hit 3 or 4 jump shots early in the game and sometimes that is fools gold because jumpers don't always fall, especially in 3rd and 4th grade.  The well dried up.  I think we scored 10 in the first half total, after having 8 in about 3 minutes.  Then we got down 10, at 20-10 in the last period and some how, some way we managed to score 14 points and win by 4.  That was the last regular game before our Upward tourney and we had won 3 in a row.  One thing about Upward though is that sometimes you can get behind in the rotation if teams don't have the same number of players, and it is especially disadvantageous if you have more players.  I won't get into the details but basically if you have 8 players they play evenly, and if a kid was out one period he has to play the next period.  By having 8 kids you ensure that your best player is out at least 2 periods.  Well the first round of the tourney we play a team with only 8 kids, and they were all boys.  Usually that is a rotation loss.  But for the tourney we could manipulate the roster and I spent about 2 hours tinkering with rotations so that I didn't have all 3 girls on the floor at once (boys don't like to pass to girls at this level for some reason, so this would give them at least 2 options to pass), I had one of my two designated in bounders on the floor at all times, and I had my best lineup going into the last period.  That was the first time I have seen a team of 8 beat of team of 6, 15-14, 5 seed over the 8 seed.  And the other team had a chance at the end just one of our players made a great defensive play and stopped a layup.
So the next game we were matched up against a team that had a similar number of wins, but also had 9 kids.  This resulted in a rotation loss for them.  That is as simple as I can put it.  I think we won like 27-21.  Then we played the number 1 seed that same night, and if we had played them fresh I feel like we would have won instead of playing with an hour of rest after the first game.  We played a box and one defense, that we actually installed the game before after halftime.  It wasn't great but man was in effective.  We lost by double digits the previous time we played and this time we lost by 2 and had a chance to win at the end.  That is all you can ask for.  And I really can't stress that with limited practice time, how hard it is to install a defense let alone a gimmicky defense, but that just speaks to the specialness (not sure about that word) of this team.  I wish we could have gotten one final team picture, but everyone was kind of upset so it was definitely understandable that we wouldn't have wanted our picture taken.  The number one seed did end up winning 18-13 over the number 3 seed, so we definitely gave them a better game.  We were also down in the rotation 8 kids to 7, so their best player only had to sit out once, and they only had one girl.  Sometimes Upward doesn't get all of the fairness check boxes just right, but every once and a while you get a team that just comes together and can almost overcome any deficit.  Hope next year is just as good, can't wait.  Here is a picture of me and my main man Charlie.

Travel Chronicles Chapter 2

Travel Chronicles Chapter 1

Adult Convo with the boy

So the whole basketball thing for the high school is kind of blowing up and multiple parents are writing letters and voice their overall displeasure with the coach and his staff.  Shocker right?  So I have written a letter as well and I wanted to talk to Sampson first before submitting it.  So we talked and he read the letter and it was a good talk.  I talked about how I had to quit my senior year because of coaching, and that maybe we are just destined to never play a senior season.  He has played well though when he played, but a lot of lessons were learned from my time to help prepare him, where I had no help growing up and neither parent played sports so sports were not very important in my household.  Anyway he said he hated last year and he only gave the coach a second chance this year and kind of everything from last year was confirmed and he doesn't want to submit himself to the verbal abuse for another year, which I totally understand.  He is in a little different situation from me, the coach pulled me and another kid in at the beginning of the season and basically said we weren't going to play and we were wasting our time.  So after 4 games (all loses) and playing for a total of 2 minutes (scored though), I could see the writing on the wall and ended my season there.  It was also a pay for play school so rather than pay to sit, I left before having to pay.  Sampson's situation is actually entirely different, after getting some varsity time last year as a sophomore he started some as a junior and was the 6th man, he just can't get by the yelling and swearing and demeaning behavior of the coaches.  I completely respect his decision and wanted to make sure he was done and he laid out a good case for being done.  I told him to never say never, but in this case there is no glory or record to obtain so it is far better to spend his time doing something else.  Maybe next year he can help me coach Upward.  Even though I had some horrible experiences with basketball and it gets me again here with my son, I still enjoy the sport, enjoy watching it and enjoy helping so that kids get a chance to play.  Now the old Hawkeyes are still in the playoffs but as the 5 seed so we got some work to do, but hopefully we can get that dub in the first round and then get another dub an hour later.  Go Hawkeyes!!!