Author: millinerd

Backblast: Handrolled Nineties Glory Part Deux
Date: 1/31/2024
AO: #ao_tar_pit
PAX: @Tortuga @Ankles @Banks @TBTF @Frank @Crack @Gummi Bear @Panhandle @Shiplap @Bones @Jolly @8-Track @Krampus @DQ @SAGA @Spit Valve @Da Vinci
FNGs: 0
Q: @Da Vinci
Total: 17

After Bodyscan Warmorama to Bittersweet Symphony we ascended to the Spa. Between classic Nineties songs we ran the hampster wheel.

1. Derkens and Ameriasdfcan Hammers with coupon
2. Dips and Scissor Kicks
3. Curls & LBCs
4. Overhead Press & Outlaws
5. Skullcrushers & Flutters
6. Merkens and Freddy Mercurys

Concluded with @Shiplap curls and @Panhandle flutters, just before our best friend showed up in her SUV.

Moleskin: Encapsulation of Viktor Frankl’s book Man’s Search for Meaning. Freud read our drives through pleasure, and Adler through power, Frankl, after experiencing Auschwitz, read our drives through meaning. “Self-actualization is possible only as a side-effect of self-transcendence.” “Man’s concern is not to gain pleasure or to avoid pain but rather to see a meaning in his life.”

“There is nothing in the world, I venture to say, that would so effectively help one to survive even the worst conditions as the knowledge that there is a meaning in one’s life. … in the concentration camps, those who knew that there was a task waiting for them to fulfill were most apt to survive. What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for a worthwhile goal, a freely chosen task.”

Frankl told a story of a man who had lost his wife and was in unbearable agony. Frankl didn’t analyze his childhood, but asked the man, “What if you had died?” The man answered, “She would have suffered terribly.” Frankl said, “Such a suffering has been spared her, and it was you who have spared her this suffering – to be sure, at the price that now you have to survive and mourn her.” By instilling meaning, the suffering did not disappear, but it was made bearable for this man.

What is your meaning?

Backblast: First annual Krampusfest
Date: Thursday, December 7th, 2023
AO: #ao_mastodon
PAX: @Linc @Samsonite @Hancock @T-bone @Tortuga@Spit Valve @Stock boy @Sparrow @Jailbreak @Jolly @Big Mac @Ankles @TBTF @Spokes @Mad Cow @Da Vinci
FNGs: 0
Q: @Da Vinci
Total: 16

Warmorama to Krampus Song

Thang:
Between rounds: Hit Krampus with Disc and 1 Sprint
Not Hit Krampus is 2 Sprints
Rounds:
Exercises during hand-rolled non-algorythm songs (from Bruce Cockburn, Amy Grant, Dolly Parton/Kenny Rogers):
Derkens and American Hammers with Coupon
Dips and Scissors
Curls & LBCs
Overhead Press & spell Krampusfest
Skullcrushers & Flutters
Merkens and BBSU
Chest Press and Coupon Sit ups
Rows & Squats
Thrusters and Bicycles

Moleskin:
Summary of Arthur Brooks’ Build the Life You Want: The Art and Science of Getting Happier. “Happiness is not a destination. Happiness is a direction. We won’t find complete happiness on this side of heaven. This is good news. We can stop wondering what’s wrong with us.” He prefers the term “Happierness.” The macronutrients of happiness are enjoyment, satisfaction, purpose

Enjoyment takes an urge for pleasure and adds two important htings; Communion and consciousness.. Thanksgiving dinner. Pleasure is animal, enjoyment is human. Don’t settle for pleasure, but rather make it into enjoyment.

Satisfaction. The thrill of accomplishing a goal you worked for. When you do some difficult or painful and it meets its life’s purpose. It doesn’t come without work or sacrifice.

Purpose This is the realm of meaning… purpose leads to the transcendent. True purpose almost always entails suffering.

Each of these has some pain in them. Happiness and sadness can co-exist. You cannot eradicate your feeling of unhappiness to get happier. 

Da Vinci7:05 AM

Backblast: Friday Run Club – 8 Deadly Thoughts conclude
Date: 12/1/2023
AO: #ao_ground_zero
PAX: @Ankles@Dr. Phil@Toto@SAGA@Beaker@Topham@Bo-Peep@T-bone@Da Vinci@Hancock@Frank
FNGs: 0
Total: 11
Q: @Da Vinci
Conditions: Rain

Warmorama to Dolly Parton’s Winter Wonderland

The Thang: We walked and we ran

Moleskin: The last of these eight deadly thoughts are especially difficult to overcome: listlessness (solution: perseverance), vainglory (solution: solitude), pride (solution: humility).  The truth is the thoughts earlier on the list are minor compared to these. They’re so difficult that we can’t do it alone.

“Before the wood becomes wooden flame—completely one with fire—the wood spits and hisses and oozes in preparation for becoming all flame. As part of the process of healing we become acutely aware of just how filled we are with arrogance, envy, preoccupation with our reputation, judgmentalism. Indeed, these characteristics were there within us, but we were at most only vaguely aware of them; now the living flame of love is drawing them out and placing them in our sight. The problem is that this stage of growth in humbling self-knowledge is singularly painful, with the result that we feel we are falling to pieces when in fact we are becoming one with the living flame of love.” Martin Laird, A Sunlit Absence: Silence, Awareness, and Contemplation(140-141).

If Laird’s books interest you, I recommend starting with the first one in the series.

Backblast: Technoball
Date: 04/18/23
AO: #ao_mastodon
PAX:  @saga @tortuga @Lemond @stockboy @poolboy @hancock @sparrow @DQ @davinci
FNGs: 0
Q: @DaVinci
Total: 9
WoR: Follow the Leader to Techno

The Thang: PAX get to lay up, foul shot or three pointer

Based on hit or miss.

Air ball automatic 20 burpees

Swish pass on to next player (no exercise required)

If you miss, all do exercise in the miss file

If you make it, all do exercise in the make file

MISS FILE Sprint to poolhouse, 70% back 50 merkens Flutters to 60 (2 is 1) 70 curls 30 hand release merkens Knee touch lunge 20 90 degree minimum Squat 20 Shoulder press 30 30 BBSU

MAKE FILE 70%  to poolhouse, mozy back 40 merkens Flutters to 40 (2 is 1) 50 curls 20 hand release merkens Knee touch lunge 30 90 degree minimum Squat 30 Shoulder press 60 20 BBSU with block

Lightning round:  

Swish, no  Make, five burpees Miss, 10 burpeess

Swish, no  Make, 15 merkens Miss, 30 merkens

Swish, no Make, 30 curls Miss, 60 curls

Moleskin: The desert is back! From Henri Nouwen’s In the Name of Jesus Do you want to be relevant, spectacular, powerful? These are the classic temptations. Antidotes are prayer (mystic), community (two by two), and love. Why is it so difficult to give up power? “Maybe it is that power offer an easy substitute for the hard task of love. It seems easier to be God than to love God, easier to control people than to love people, easier to own life than to love life.”

But there are more. Stay tuned 8 deadly thoughts.
Gluttony, Lust, Greed, Sadness, Anger, Listlessness, Vainglory, Pride

Backblast: Desert Fathers with Neil Diamond
Date: 3/2/2023
AO: #ao_mastodon
PAX:   @Mancon@DQ@Banks, @SAGA@Hancock@Da Vinci@Dogear@Gummi Bear@Aloha@Shiplap@Jolly@Panhandle @syllabus @Bo-Peep@TBTF@Tortuga@Big Mac@Jailbreak@Pool Boy@Hershey
FNGs: 1
Q: @Da Vinci
Total: 20
Conditions:Mild  

Warmorama to Neil Diamond Soilitary Man (and other songs throughout) 

Thang: It took three years but we have concluded working through the entire Sayings of the Desert Fathers alphabetized. PAX choose from MILD WILD OR CHILD                                                                             

WILD
flutters to 60
Go and be merciful to everybody, for mercy finds freedom of speech in the presence of God. -Pambo 14

Scout Run Long track (Dan Taylor alley)
“It is good to eat flesh and to drink wine and not to eat thew flesh of your brothers in backbiting.” Hyperechios 4

Sprint to baseball diamond and four bases, 70% back
“We must not be swelled up with pride when the Lord does something through us – but rather be thankful that we were found worthy to be called by him.” Pionite 4

Jacobs ladder (10x up the hill, increasing burpees, 1 – 10)
“Wherever you go, do not measure yourself and you will experience repose.” Paphnutius 3

60 merkens and 30 burpees
“Go and stay in your cell; offer one prayer at dawn, one in the evening, and one at night. East when you are hungry, drink when you thirst, sleep when you are tired,; stay in the desert and do not be swayed by thoughts.” Paphnutius 5

MILD
Flutters to 40
“Bear with me when I oppose you and when you oppose me I will bear with you.” -Paul the Barber 16:10

Scout Run Medium track (by the log cabin)
“What do we want with this busy profession,” asked one of the monks. Throughout the whole day we are not allowed to practice silence.” Abba Paul said, the silence of the night is enough for us if our mind is keeping watch.” Paul the Barber

Mozy to goal baseball diamond and four bases, 40% back
“Follow Jesus.” -Abba Paul S1

Jacobs ladder (7x up the hill, increasing burpees to 1-7 )
“O obedience, mother of all the virtues!” Rufus

40 merkens and 20 burpees
“Just as a ship cannot be built without nails, so is it impossible to be saved without hmble-mindedness.” Syncletica S9

CHILD
Flutters to 30
“Self esteem and fearlessness often occasion sin,” Sisoes 41

Short track (island bridge) (burpee if you finish early)
The disciple said to the elder, “’You have a good mind but you are a bit hard.” The elder said to him, “You are a good man but soft in the head.” Sisoes 51

Mozy to baseball diamond and four bases, mozy back
“Woe to the man whose reputation is greater than his performance.” Silvanus 10

Jacobs ladder (5x up the hill, increasing burpees to 1-5)
Can a person make a fresh start each day? Abba Silavaus said: If he is a real worker, a person can make a fresh start each day and each hour.” Silvanus 11

25 merkens and 10 burpees
The governor came to see Abba Simon, who dressed up like a beggar and when the governor saw him he took off forthwith. Simon 2

Moleskin
“It is no great virtue if you maintain your practice in your cell, but it is when you come out of your cell.” Serionos 2
“It is possible to be with many people yet to be alone in one’s thought; also really to be alone and yet to be among many in one’s mind. Syncletica S1
“Either make a clean break with men or make a laughingstock of the world and of men by making yourself a fool in many ways.” Or 14  

Prayers for @Bo-Peep Betsy and Baby

Backblast: Return of the Desert Fathers
Date: Wednesday, 1/18/22 – 5:30 AM
AO: #ao_tar_pit
PAX: @DaVinci, @Panhandle (respect), @Shiplap, @Jolly (respect), @SAGA, @Sparrow, @Tortuga (respect), @Pool Boy
FNGs: 0
Q: @Da Vinci
Total: 8
————————————
Conditions: annoyingly mild

Warmorama, follow the leader to Joshua Tree

Thang: The PAX chose from Wild, Mild or Child (concealed in envelopes – read saying and then do exercise)

1. Wild

Panhandle flutters to 60
“A beginner who is insulted and tolerates it is like a tree that is watered each day.” Isaiah 1
“The beginning of evil is distraction.” Poemen 43

Around the school with every staircase (burpee for early finish)
“A beginner who is insulted and tolerates it is like a tree that is watered each day.” Isaiah 1

Sprint to goal posts, 70% back
“Go and attach yourself to a person who fears God, and from your contact with that person he will teach you too to fear God” Poemen 65

Jacobs ladder (10x up the hill, increasing burpees, 1 – 10)
“We see three physical activities with Abba Pambo: no food until evening every day, silence, and a great deal of handiwork.” Poemen 149

30 burpees
“The beginning of evil is distraction.” Poemen 43

2. Mild

Panhandle Flutters to 40
“Do not entrust your conscience to somebody in whose heart you do not have confidence.” Poemen S 14

Around the school with every other staircase (burpees if you finish early)
“If a person has humility, is indifferent to goods, and does not pass judgment, the fear of God comes to him.” Euprepius 5

Sprint to goal posts, 40% back
“A person is as in need of humble-mindedness and of the fear of God as he is of the breath that comes out of his nose.” Poemen 49

Jacobs ladder (7x up the hill, increasing burpees to 1-7 )
“It is said of abba Pior that every day he started all over again” Poemen 85

20 burpees
“Do not fulfill your own will; rather accept the obligation to humble yourself before your brother.” Poemen 157

3. Child

Panhandle Flutters to 30
“Deeds are good, but indifferent to posssessions is greater than all.” Theodore of Pherme1

Around the school with no staircases (burpee if you finish early)
“A brother said to Abba Poemen, ’If I fall into grievous sin, my thoughts devour me and accuse me, saying ’Why did you fall?” The elder said to him: ’at whatever time a person fall into a misdeed and say, ‘I sinned,’ it is done with, immediately.” Poemen 98

Mozy lap
“We do not need anything other than alert intelligence.” Poemen 134

Jacobs ladder (5x up the hill, increasing burpees to 1-7 )
“A person living with his neighbor ought to be like a pillar of stone: insulted but not getting angry; revered without becoming haughty.” Poemen S 11

10 burpees
“Satan does not know by which passion the soul is worsted. He sows, but he know not whether he will reap; he sows some people with porneia, others with slanderous thoughts, and likewise with the rest of the passion and to whatever passion he notices a soul inclining, he fires it up.” Matoes 4

Moleskine:
“If Moses had not led the sheep to a fold, he would not have seen what he saw at the bush.” Poemen S 8

Prayer: Prayed

Date: 11/22/22
AO: #ao_mastodon
PAX: @SAGA@LeMond@Hershey@Bloomer@Stock boy@Beaker @majorcrunch @Majorette@Dilbert@Panhandle@T-bone@Jolly@Spokes@Hancock@Dogear@Sparrow@Big Mac@Captain Crunch@Da Vinci
FNGs: 0
Q: @Da Vinci
Total: 19 PAX

Warm-O-Rama and Thang:  Departing from the Love Crusade song, we exercised through each Crusade, highlighting (among other moments) St. Francis’s peaceful encounter with the Sultan Melek al-Kamil in 1219.

Moleskin: “The Kingdom of God is within you.”

COR/NOR/COT: Prayers for traveling PAX, Stockboy’s daughter, health of our families

Backblast: Exit the Nineties
Date: 9/15/22
AO:#ao_mastodon

PAX: @jolly @saga @pinkdrink @bloomer @Janhus @spokes @poolboy @majorette @T-Bone @panhandle @bopeep @bigmac @patdown @hancock @tortuga @archive @Davinci
FNGs: 2
Q:@Davinci
Total: 19

After entering the Nineties on Tuesday, today we exit them with a workout set to the late Nineties album OK Computer, which critiques assent to computer technology, but which was only possible because of computer technology.

Warmorama follow the leader.

Jacobs Ladder:  7 burpees (at this point Da Vinci blew a calf muscle, imparting at great cost to himself the crucial life lesson of not Qing twice in the same week)

Workout with these two exercises with each song.

1. Derkens and Dutch Bazookas
2. Dips and Dollys
3. Curls & LBCs
4. Overhead Press & Outlaws
5. Skullcrushers & Scissor Kick
6. Merkens and Mary of your choice
7. Rows & Russian Twists

Moleskin: In his book The Life We’re Looking For Andy Croush makes a distnction between DEVICES VS. INSTRUMENTS

Fill your home with devices that play music, and the chance that you will maintain the habits of practice that aallow you to make music yourself, to create rather than consume, will shrink. Sign up for an unlimited video-streaming service, and somehow the time available for reading books – and concentrating on them – will seem to dwindle.

Instruments expand the capacity of human beings without shrinking other parts of us at the same time. They do so because they extend our capacities by further developing our hearts, souls, minds, and strength – further involving us in the glorious and difficult work of being persons in the world.   (140,142).

Backblast: Enter the Nineties
Date: 9/13/22
AO:#ao_mastodon

PAX: @LeMond @poolboy @pinkdrink @spokes @saga @maniac @T-Bone @Tortuga @patdown @panhandle @hancock @majorette @jolly @davinci
FNGs: 0
Q:@Davinci
Total: 14

This week we enter the Nineties with a workout set to the early Nineties album Siamese Dream.

Warmorama to “Disarm” follow the leader

Jacobs Ladder:  9 burpees

1. Lunges and LBCs
2. Hand Release Merkens and American Hammers
3. Squats and Flutters
4. Side straddle hops and BBSU
5. Wide Merkens and Leg Lifts
6. Bonnie Blairs and Crunchy Frogs

Jacobs Ladder:  3 burpees 

Moleskin: In his book Christ is Time which puts Nineties music into conversation with theology, my friend Mark Edwards says, “I have learned more Christian theology from what Nietzsche rejects than from what most professing Christian theologian affirm…”

Commenting on the lyrics “Today is the greatest day” he contrasts two ways of making that claim.

First, he cites Nietzshe:

“If some day or night a demon were to sneak after you into your loneliest loneliness and say to you, ‘This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more, and there will be nothing new in it …’ How well disposed you have to become to yourself to love to crave nothing more fervently…”

But instead of this Mark counsels not the idolatrous seizing of time, but gratitude for it:

 “When Christ is encountered, when one repents of trying to be the Übermensch at the center of all history, when one sets aside one’s own master plan and simply follows the Rabbi down uncharted roads, then one begins to understand that this life, our lives, her life and indeed my today is a gift of the crucified and resurrected Lord of Time, who is Jesus of Nazareth.”  (p. 150).

COT: Prayers for Maniac, Naomi, Lemond.

Backblast: Monday Run/Ruck club
Date: Monday, 1/03/22
AO:#ao_mastodon
PAX: @Jolly@Tortuga@8Track@Panhandle@Sparrow@Archive@Shiplap@Cheese@Ranger Rick@TBTF@Da Vinci
FNGs: 0
Q: @Da Vinci
Total: 12
Conditions: 7 degrees
Warm-Up: Burpees to Cold as Ice.
The Thang: We ran, we rucked. And we had enough PAX (exceeding the 7 degrees) to count as a CLUSTERFREEZE.                                                                                                                           Moleskin: “Does a tall man deserve to be tall? Does Prince Steren deserve to be the son of a king? A bird might think he deserves to swim as well as a fish, but if he sits moping on the riverbank instead of using the wings God gave him, the fox is going to eat him. “Your brother would rather have his own way than be happy. He’s thrown away the grace he was given because it’s not the grace he had in mind.” The Truthspeaker paused to reflect on that. “There’s not much hope for a person who won’t live in the grace he’s given.”
 ―  Jonathan Rogers,  The Secret of the Swamp King (edited)