Cold War Nukes, Barbecues, Stinko de Mayo and Negative workouts

I am back. I am being flooded by so many memories these days. I think that this time of year, spring and summer, were some heady times for me in my youth. I never really thought about being as old as I am now. I figured that I would be dead, one way or another. It is not so much suicide, but I really did see nuclear holocaust in our futures twenty or so years ago. That was some good Cold War thinking. As I look back, and I do not want to ignore the recency effect we are all subject to, I think times are actually more dangerous now. That really frightens me.

It is not so much me that I am frightened for but the Lad. He will have to deal with any aftermath, assuming we are not vaporized at ground zero. There is an upside and downside to that one, though. The upside of that kind of death is that it is assumed painless and quick. You also do not have to deal with the aftermath of such an incident. It is simply game over. The downside, obviously, is not being alive. It is a pretty big downside, if you ask me, and it may easily outweigh the upside. That follows the "better the devil you know" theory as opposed to the death as a martyr is a great thing bunch of crap rationalization be used by many an extremist.

On that happy note, I want to move forward. If I spend too much time dwelling on that, I will just spend too much energy on something that I cannot control and that is the destiny of the planet. I can only control my own destiny, so that is where I will focus my energy.

The weekend has come and gone. It was beautiful here. It was a lovely and sunny Stinko de Mayo. We did have our first barbecue of the season. I did not blow up. That is always my concern with the first lighting of the barbecue. My barbecue is going on 14 years old and has seen better days. In fact, I have a small patch of usuable space. There is the center area where the flame and heat are and the rest. I sear the stuff there and put it to the side and let it finish as if it were in an oven. It is almost professional but it is not. The grill owes us nothing. It has been good. I just have to buy a new one. I will just add it to the list. It does mean that cooking for large groups, over three, can be time consuming, but since it is usually people that the Wife has invited, I do not mind being outside and away from any yakking.

Stinko de Mayo also happens to be the first time I put myself through a "negative" workout. That was fresh off of Billfest in 1985. We went to our Nautilus club (Dave and I) and asked for the negative workout. Who knew? The negative is when you go heavy on the weight and have help with the positive and then slowly, muscles remaining contracted, do the negative to the starting position. We did a full body one of those. Then when the wave of nausea passed, we tried to have a drink of water. I know my hand was shaking so badly that I could barely get the paper cup up to my mouth.

Okay, we were cooked at the time. We did collect ourselves and make it home, alive. The next day, it did not seem that bad. I had had worse post workout pain. On the Tuesday (May 7th as it would be) was the worst. I could barely get out of bed. That was the ultimate in post workout pain. I have never felt anything like that since. It was good.

On that happy note, by the way the story segue was the date (May 7), I am done. It is baseball time. Will Willie be there or won't he? That is the question. Ciao!