Monday Bacon: Ties in the NFL (and Other Fuckupfoolery.)

Posted on October 30, 2016 by tosabarbell

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I dunno, if I go to Wembley stadium, I want to see something amazing. Like Muse; or Queen; or Jimi Hendrix. Not some snoozefest American football game. I can see those at home and still enjoy leftover Halloween candy and Halloween wine.

There’s a lol story here that encapsulates how I feel about NFL ties. My favorite line was, ‘The tie game in London might’ve been the first one that fans actually enjoyed because guess what: Everyone in England is used to ties.’ I chuckled out loud at that one.

Snore.

Anyways. Since moving to Wisconsin, I have experienced a larger than normal type of fandom. Packer Backers are no joke. My favorite line that I’m confronted with at least once per season upon hearing that I’m from Minnesota and a Vikings fan is, ‘How many world championship rings do YOU have??!!’ My answer has been; Well none, I’ve taken second place at World Championships the last two years. Thanks for that pleasant little fucking reminder. That gets met with a confused look and a change of topic. Good, that was the goal.

Cuz I don’t care. Many Packer Backers care. And by “care” I mean they are unreasonably cuckoo about it. The majority of Milwaukee Packer Backers despise the Chicago home teams, go Indians. But they are devout Chicago Blackhawks fans. I. Can’t. Even. Now, if I wanted to hate a sports team, I would be very justified in hating the Chicago Blackhawks. They were the evil rival in the Norris division of the North Stars and when you went to a game at the old Met Center, you’re sure to see at least three scuffles between Blackhawks and Stars fans. But then Norm Green (another person I could hate since he took away our beloved Stars) took away our beloved Stars and pussified them down in Texas. (Not really, but kinda.)

There are many times someone will tell me that they don’t care about sports but then rage on their FB pages about teams they hate. Hate. A sports team. And it doesn’t matter if it’s college or Pro, these Cheeseheads hate across the board. Now, of course, other regions have their versions of fandom. I don’t doubt that there’s a crazy everywhere, maybe even in Minnesota (but prolly not.)

When the Z’s played hockey, I hated playing teams from New Ulm. Tell ya what, those Germans are no joke. Especially at tournaments. You could tell the drinks were flowing from sun up to sun down and if you played them in the afternoon or evening, you had dozens of drunk fans with cowbells screaming, “zigga zagga zigga zagga, OY OY OY!” with every score. OH, by the way, every score meant that the puck went by my daughter. Hockey goaltender Mom-ing ain’t for wimps. Tell ya what. But I didn’t hate the team. The team was made up of a bunch of little girls I didn’t know. Zandra’s High School team had some other fun rivalries and while it wouldn’t occur to me to hate them, her team beating them was awfully satisfying.

I was far more concerned with how she was doing and in the game of small town High School hockey, a loss meant that the goaltender failed at their job and every loss went solely on her shoulders. It was torture.

I’ve been a Vikings “fan” since I was a little girl because, well, I grew up in Minnesota and Dad was a Vikings fan. We went to Games. We went to see Carl Eller at Iten Chevrolet and there’s a picture out there somewhere of me sitting on his lap in my favorite red, knitted poncho. I mean, CARL ELLER! What’s not to love about this:

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Srsly.

But when they lost, I didn’t get mad. There have been times through the years where they give you a slight heartbreak but then you move on. I dunno, I guess I learned from my dad that when they won an exciting game it was very exciting for about 10 minutes and then we’d go on to the next thing. When they lost, it would be disappointing for about 10 minutes and then we’d go on to the next thing. Perspective, Pastor John has it.

I watched one of the World Series games the other night, the one in Cleveland that Chicago won, when the camera panned the crowd at one point. A man was crying. Crying. I mean, really, if we know nothing we STILL know THERE’S NO CRYING IN BASEBALL! But even if there was, how about not during Game 2 when your team is down. The most disturbing part of this man, is that while crying, he looked pissed. Like, I hope there wasn’t a sweet little wifey back at home who doesn’t care about baseball and asks, “Did you have fun at the game?” when he gets home and then he kicks the shit out of her cuz, well, he didn’t have fun at the game. Ya, probably a made up story but I’m going with it. I don’t want to know a grown man who’s crying at a baseball game unless he’s down on the field, wearing a jersey and you’ve just lost the whole show. Then, maybe a glistening tear is appropriate. The weird thing was that this man was sitting in pretty prime seats so it’s assumed he could afford prime seats but then was on the television crying at a baseball game. Dude. Srsly.

In general, I don’t care. I like when the Vikings beat the Packers because that’s fun and then my Packer Backer uncle up north buys us steak dinners. But if the Vikings lose the next one, we’ll buy and it will still be awesome because we get to spend time together. (My Uncle is a Master Clockmaker. He is one of the most interesting people I’ve ever met and I could listen to his stories for hours and hours. He should do a TED talk on “time.” Seriously. He’s amazing.) He gets less annoyed now when the Packers lose but about 30 years ago I tried calling him to give him a hard time after a Vikings win and it wasn’t well received. Heh.

I can understand Collegiate alumni caring about a sports outcome. They still don’t get to cry about it but I understand. Our friends, Ross and Victoria, were throwers at Nebraska. She is a Big 12 Hammer champion, Vic is metal. Anyways. The first time I met them was at a Highland Games and Nebraska lost that day (football.) I was wondering who this crazy man was who cared so much about the ‘Huskers (I went to school in Nebraska, I understand the level of crazy there.) Turns out it was just Ross. But I kind of get that. You have four years of your life invested in a program where you were one. Again, you’ve invested. Got it.

To my knowledge, I know of no Packer Backers with NFL appointed World Championship rings being worn. But I don’t wear one either, even a non-NFL appointed Championship ring (a Championship ring would have cost over $300 and I chose not to get one. If I want to spend over $300 on jewelry, I’d want something in the form of a plane ticket somewhere. True story.) But I’m ready for that all important question of, “HOW MANY CHAMPIONSHIP RINGS DO YOU HAVE???!!!”

I can honestly answer, none-I chose not to order one but my Silver medal from World Championships in the other sport I compete in is hanging from my Championship bear and I’m pretty proud of it. I imagine that will still be met with confusion and followed by a topic change.

Good. That was the goal.

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Monday Bacon: I’ll Get It Next Time (and other lies we tell ourselves.)

Posted on October 24, 2016 by tosabarbell
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Brazil’s Fernando Saraiva Reis. I adore this lifter. He seems to always be having fun. 

I touched on this a couple of weeks ago. An article I skimmed the other day annoyed me enough that I’ll dig a little deeper here.

Last month, I had a client compete in a local strongman contest. This was his second year and, imo, he did awesome. He improved some things he struggled with last time (mostly food. Getting him to understand the food necessary to keep going during a multi-event Strongman contest has been a bit of a struggle. It seems we’ve turned a corner and he fuels his bod throughout the day to have steam for his last event. Total win!) and we’re very proud of him.

We had Bigg birthday plans so couldn’t make the contest but I felt okay about it since he’d already been through this one and knew the ropes. In general, if I have someone competing locally, I’ll do what I can to get there. Anyone who steps up to the plate/platform/tire flip is tops in my book. But improvements throughout the year is expected, especially if you’re working with someone who knows what they’re doing and you’re executing what you know.

As we all know, execution of what we know isn’t always easy. We’ve all been there. We no height/bomb out/no turn our way into a less than stellar showing than what we’d hoped. Happens. To everyone. It’s frustrating A.F. but all you can do is get back in the gym and go back to the drawing board.

And as a coach, it’s your job to figure out why. As I mentioned earlier, mechanics. What mechanical failure occurred that prevented success? As I mentioned above, are you not eating enough to fuel yourself for the entire day? What, specifically, happened? Cuz, “I dunno” is a stupid thing to say when failure occurs. “I dunno” means you’ve hired the wrong coach to see you through failure. “I dunno” means you demand your money back immediately or at the very least, part ways.

Oh, another way to say, “I dunno” is “yeah, that just happens.” Failure happens. But not “just.” Something has broken down to allow it to happen. Let’s figure that out. Food/Sleep/Programming/Mechanics/Life. Something to interfere with all of our hard work to prevent us from achieving a range of well done to outstanding.

Oh, another way to say, “yeah, that just happens” is “you’ll get it next time.” I hate that. Absolutely hate it. Oh really? I’ll get it next time? Like, that just happens? That doesn’t just happen. If that just happened, you’d have an 18 way tie for the Gold Medal at the Olympics. Cuz, what if the entire groups ‘next time’ is this time? What a mess!

But ya know what? That hasn’t happened in the history of EVER because that’s not how this works. There are people who go their entire competition career who fail to fix whatever is holding them back. Whether it be mechanics or motivation, they just didn’t find the right person to pull it out of them. That is unfortunate. Incredibly. A lot of athletes with amazing capacity for success fall by the wayside at some point. If you don’t believe me, watch a 30 for 30 marathon during your next snow day. You’ll be completely depressed but at least you’ll see I’m right.

Very rarely does shit “just happen.” And if it does, it happened by accident and will be damn hard to replicate it. I dunno, I like to duplicate success so I’d rather not leave it up to chance. That requires the work, the correct work, to instill the (in this case) movement.

Back to our Strongman event. Chris missed his 3rd attempt Log Press and when he texted me he said, ‘I’ll get it next time.’ Cool. I wasn’t there but if he says he’ll get it next time, maybe he will. Let’s look at the video. Luckily, there was video. Uh oh, mechanics are off. We watched it together and went through what needs to improve and, if he does, chances are he WILL get it next time. But not without addressing the problem. In fact, I think my words were “If you lift it like that, you won’t get it next time.” I’m encouraging that way.

This also explains why my style of coaching isn’t for everyone. Especially people who’s mommy told them they can do anything they want; they are destined for greatness; or they are the most special snowflake. If this be the case in your life, don’t call me. You won’t last long. (We once knew a lifter who would claim that he was destined for greatness. The problem was, he wasn’t and so he ADD’d his ass all over the strength/conditioning/diet world trying to find what he was great at while giving it 3-6 months with each endeavor to find out. Dude. First off, “Greatness” rarely occurs. Like, ever. Mother Teresa. She was ‘Greatness.’ Richard Branson/Steve Jobs/Bill Gates. Greatness. They have impacted the world with their works/ideas. Lifters? No. And yes, we may impact those around us in positive ways and we can be incredibly satisfied about that. But that’s not ‘Greatness.’ STFU.)

But we can make small changes to mechanics that have large impacts to overall success and that is awesome. That’s what we strive for, yes? Small success’ over time allowing us to be better than a year ago. It is how I approach my own lifting. For every session, I am most likely trying to fix one thing. Maybe two if I can but one will be more important than the other. I don’t assume I’ll get it next time, I’ll work today to fix why I didn’t last time. I’m perfectly happy with small improvements. And when I tell someone working with me that they did a great job, I mean it. I don’t throw that shit out there willy nilly. Because I value the small steps. And in almost all cases, I know how to fix the little shit with big impacts and if I don’t, I’ll find out how. (Also, I’ll give credit to whomever helped me. Don’t you just love these “coaches” who have claimed to figure out shit on their own and then don’t even know how to describe how they’ve come to their ‘own’ conclusions? I know I do. Strength coaches who take people’s money and know jack shit about strength coaching. I can name 5 gyms in the immediate two square mile radius around me that do this. Pieces of shit. Not because I can help everyone, but I don’t take money from people I can’t.)

Anyways. Listen up folks. If the person you’re paying uses terms like “yeah, that just happens” or “you’ll get it next time” I encourage you to ask questions. WHY did that just happen, what broke down? HOW do I get it next time, what will we be working on to achieve that. Don’t tell me lies to make me feel better, tell me HOW.

Obviously.

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One last Fernando picture. Are you having this much fun lifting? I hope so.

Right now I’m just delighted to be alive and to have had a nice long bath.

Richard Branson

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Monday Bacon: Throat Punch x 2

Posted on October 17, 2016 by tosabarbell

When we first moved to Milwaukee, one of the first things the Ozman did was locate the Surplus store. Surplus stores to Oz is like Lululemon to the average crossfitting male, a happy place.  Luckily, the shop is about 10 minutes away (actually everything in Milwaukee is about 10 minutes away) and an easy drive to downtown. Really the only trouble with the location is that it’s across the street where the panhandlers congregate before going ‘on the job’ (local panhandlers can make anywhere from $200-$500 per day in cash. A pretty good gig if you ask me) and they get incredibly aggressive if you don’t give them money. I’ll leave that topic for another day.

The store is run by very capable people who recognized that Oz has very specific interests and had always been incredibly helpful in directing him to where he may find what he’s looking for any particular day. We drove down one night after he finished his homework and while he was wandering about on one side of the store, I was on the other looking at some shelf stuff. Nothing major, just leaving him basically alone to take his time. There was a man trying on clothes with two older women (maybe mom and friend, who knows) who could have been in his early 20’s or so. I’m horrible at guessing people’s ages.

At some point, he went to pass me and instead of continuing on, he rubbed against my backside, pushing me into the shelves with an erect penis. I pushed against him and instantly started kicking him and yelling. The two women rushed over and hustled him in the dressing room but he just looked me and smiled. Mother. Fucker. The store owner came rushing over trying to diffuse the situation and putting himself between the, now group of 3 people, and myself. Poor 6th grade Oz was on the other side of the store wondering what in the everlasting fuck just happened. I grabbed Oz and got out of there.

I called Matt who called the store and talked to the owner. Everything calmed down but there was a lot going on there. First off, fucker. Supposedly the women told the store owner that he is mentally handicapped and not to call the police. So he didn’t but told them to get out of his store and never come back. Second, I hate that it happened with Oz there. When we talked about it later, Oz felt bad because he said that we wouldn’t have even been there if he didn’t want to go. (Memo to me, my son puts the world on his shoulders. Let’s fix that before he becomes miserable, eh?)

As unpleasant as it was, there are worst things in the world. There have even been worse things in my world and we all got over it. In fact, I hadn’t thought of it in years until I read a story where a super model (the daughter of one of the Real Housewives of ‘somewhere’) was attacked by a “prankster” who grabs famous young women and throws them around a little using protesting various stupid shit as his platform for assault.

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Gigi Hadid getting grabbed and lifted up by a man who the press has deemed a “prankster.” Finicky press aren’t they?

While she was being attacked, Ms. Hadid’s fight or flight instincts kicked in and she fought. Unfortunately, she and her sister were the only one’s who fought and no one else stepped in to grab this piece of shit and kick the ever living out of him. He laughed and ran off into the crowd. Assault is so funny.

Well, after reading about her story, I thought of my own from years ago. No, assault isn’t funny. Unfortunately, that doesn’t make it any less real.

Fast forward to Friday night. The Bigg guy and I decided to paint the town red and go out. Honestly, we don’t go out very often. First off, we usually make better food than what we can over pay for and kinda like to be comfortable eating it. Plus, ya know, Sling TV and all the sports. But we ventured off into the Milwaukee night and ate Mexican food; spent some time at Matt’s favorite beer bar (Roman’s) and stopped in our local joint, McBob’s for post drink mini-reuben’s (we didn’t each much at the Mexican joint and it caught up to us.)

It was a nice, almost quiet evening at McBob’s and we sat up at the bar. At some point, Matt said he’s going to TT and will be right back. Shortly after, a hand landed on my right shoulder and a man whispered in my left ear, “Hey baby, wanna….”

That’s as far as he got. I smashed my left elbow around and connected mid-sternum and used my best throwing ‘separation’ technique (with some leg push from the bar step) to get all my hip into the right hand punch to the throat of my unfortunate new friend when all of a sudden he started screaming, “Juli stop! It’s me, Scotty!”  Yup. I just throat punched, twice, our dear friend and bartender, Scotty.

I was mortified. Kinda. I hurt him and I’m sorry I hurt my friend. On the other hand, yeah instincts. Also, Scotty learned to never do that again. We hung out for a while after and all is good but I’ll probably always be the girl who kicked Scotty’s ass.

And at the end of the day, so be it. The friend in me still feels bad for punching him, twice. But the woman in me feels okay. This is one of those, it is what it is dealio’s. And no, I don’t want any “man, people should know not to mess with you’ comments. At the end of the day, we all (men and women, but yes, mostly women) are in vulnerable positions and we never really know how we’re going to react in any situation. This is how I reacted in this situation and like I said, the mechanics were good for me to throw a couple hard shots. That may not be the case if there is a next time.

In general, let’s be careful out there. Men, have your woman’s back and make sure she knows what to do if she needs to defend herself cuz you’re in the TT room. Women, don’t wait for your man to have your back, fight or flight. But don’t freeze. And men, if you see a woman in trouble and you don’t step in, well, you can imagine what my opinion of you is.

My favorite picture of the whole model assault situation is the one of the right:

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Gigi Hadid ready to go after her assailant. Big strong guy who does nothing else but hold her back.

The girl wasn’t ready for the start of this attack but was ready to finish it. Her “body guard” held her back. See how much fun the prankster is having? I’m hoping his future includes someone else’s view of how much fun it will be assaulting, sorry, pranking him. I’ll post those pictures too.

Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned/nor hell a fury like a woman scorned.

William Congreve 

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Friday Jams: Shopping

Posted on October 14, 2016 by tosabarbell

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My daughter has been FB tagging me her Christmas shopping list. Prepared, that’s her. But it’s October and I’m fairly certain that there are rules against Christmas shopping in October. Sorry Za not sorry.

However, I did goof off on the interwebz this morning to see what trendy things are out there for prizes. I found a few good ones.

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Carry on cocktail kits

I can think of about 87 people who could use this and they have ‘Highland Games athlete’ written all over them.

This, plus…
this.

A professional grade flavor injector and some steam punk goggles. Look, I know I know a lot of cool guys but you buy a boy a huge needle and some crazy glasses and they’ll head to the grill with a hunk of meat and play mad scientist. Don’t even think of telling me I’m wrong.

sig sauer p320 compact price for sale

sig sauer p320 compact price for sale

Nothing keeps the ‘Christ’ in Christmas like a new gun. In fact, I suggest you buy your gun early because if Hillary is voted in, she’s going to take all of our guns (I really just adore when people say that about any politician.)

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I think a Brandon Lilly deadlift portrait hanging in the dining room would be a great conversation piece. (**note: while the briefs deadlift shot is fine, hold out for a ranger panties deadlift picture. You’re welcome.)

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I’m just gonna put this out there for AD’s who are looking for new ideas for Games prizes. Cuz, awesome!

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This pistachio pedestal is actually kind of cool and under $50. I’ll probably buy one and say I’m going to have it around for a cool gift to give but then either forget about it or just keep it for myself.

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Homemade prizes really mean the most. You could also use this as an ice breaker at your Christmas party and then use all information gained through your ice breaker as blackmail for the next year. It’s the gift that keeps on giving.

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This actually is advertised as, Let’s Play Doctor, for adults on the interwebz. I wonder what the Let’s Play Doctor, for children game looks like.

And when all else fails:

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Love coupons… I guess. A foot rub got Tony Rockamora thrown out a window, no thanks. Also, I pretty much do the dishes all the time anyway. Don’t really like going to movies and I’m not giving up control of the remote. Ever. Matt doesn’t eat breakfast and what in the world would he ever want to veto? All my ideas are brilliant! We just got Sling TV which means a ‘Nice quiet night in’ is our every night. Dude, I’ve got, like 18 sports channels to watch. I’m pretty busy. Anything for you? Well, I guess that depends on what “anything” looks like and if it’s a foot rub, forget it.

There ya go. Some great Christmas ideas in October. Oops, I suppose I should put some music in here since it’s Friday Jams:

I just really love this song. If Marilyn Manson’s This is Halloween doesn’t put you in the Halloween spirit, you’re dead inside (which is actually very Halloween. I love irony.)

Music is the strongest form of magic.

Marilyn Manson

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