After a month-long absence due to injury, YHC knew he would need some extra accountability to get back in the groove. YHC borrowed a page from UncleJesse’s playbook and signed up for a number of Qs over the next few weeks. Then, the Nan’tan dropped the dope on the October pax challenge. The two dovetail nicely!

It’s been a minute since YHC has been to the #Mothership, so it seemed appropriate to start off the Q spree there. YHC also wanted to try some things he had not tried before. It went down like this:

Disclaimer given and off we went right on time

Partner up and mosey to the coupon cage where JudgeHairy gave YHC lessons on how to open a lock.

Mosey to the center of the complex for Dora.

• P1 does work at tables
• P2 sprint to wall, 3 wall walks, sprint back, flapjack
• Cumulative work is: 100 curl-to-press, 200 box jumps, 300 V-Ups
• A few pax had gotten into the v-ups before time was called

Mosey over to the hill, drop off blocks and circle up

• Dan for the shoulders
• 1 merkin, 4 air press, 2 merkins, 8 air press, …, 5 merkins, 20 air press
• It’s just air, right? #Ouch

Back at the hill for more Dora

• P1 does work at bottom of hill
• P2 sprints to top of hill, 20 chest press with feet held at 6”, sprint back down, flapjack
• Cumulative work is 100 goblet squats, 200 big boy sit-ups, 300 flutter kicks (count one leg)

Mosey to put up blocks and jail break back to the flag

Count, name, pray

There is much going on in our world, our nation, and right here in our own community. BabyBlu is mourning the loss of his father-in-law. Cruiser in Houston is mourning the loss of his son. We are all mourning the tragedy in Las Vegas. Our nation appears in turmoil. The globe even more so. Chaos is everywhere we turn, demanding our attention, even if it doesn’t deserve our attention.

This is one area where I seem to be on a roller coaster. I over-engage with low-value targets for a period and then I come to my senses and nearly completely disengage from everything but the most high-value targets. The latter tends to leave me very isolated.

It is during this chaos and unwavering demand for our time that we must be consciously seize every moment and live it to its fullest. It’s easy to just gloss over moment after moment as we push toward the next moment. But then your little boy is riding a bike. And now you can’t give him a kiss anymore. And now no more hugs. You become a mortal enemy of the man he is wanting to become. In order to forge his own manhood, he must explore the bounds of yours. If you’ve done your job reasonably well then he will be strong and independent, which leaves you with dueling feelings of satisfaction and sadness. It’s another paradox in long list of things that don’t make sense in this life.

Every moment counts.

You never know when there won’t be any more moments.

So, seize every one.

NMS:

YHC rolled up at about 0505 and saw a couple of cars. No one emerged as I trotted up for the first of two failed attempts to open the coupon cage. Noticed Alpo’s car parked off to the side, but he did not appear to be in there. Probably running a mile or 12 to get loose for boot camp.

After failing to open the coupon cage, YHC began to trot off. Ah! Maybe I was looking at it upside down. So I looped back and failed at opening the cage again before circling back over to where I assumed there would be a flag waiting.

Nope. No Polly. 0513. A few cars here, but everyone just chilling in their vehicles. Lego finally emerged, followed closely by Trojan. “This must be the anti-social crowd,” I quip as Polly and JudgeHairy wheel into the parking lot.

“I was enjoying my sleep-in time,” I hear in a distinctly afro-laden, jerkish voice. I wheel around to se Alpo walking around the front of his vehicle. Damn, he’s fast, I think. But he isn’t sweating. He must have been running a slow, conversational pace of about 7:05. Or…was he sleeping in his car?

“Were you sleeping in your car?” That part was out loud, too, apparently, and not just in my head.

Alpo was offended by my question. In response, he stood 20 yards away from the circle with his arms folded. I partnered everyone up and, just to get back at Alpo, made us partners.

Alpo got the last laugh, though. As we were trotting up to the center of the complex, I notice that Alpo decided to grab one of those 12” blocks.

“I regret it every time I don’t grab it,” Alpo said when I pressed him on what in the world he was thinking. “Then again, I regret it every time I do grab it.” Aye. Jerk. ?

I guess I subconsciously partnered myself with Alpo because I knew he would push me to the edge and would make me stay there longer than I should be able to.

As we moseyed back to the coupon cage, Polly began pontificating on the reasons some of his regulars were absent. He noted that the Jugg on Q can have an undue influence on attendance. “They must be scared,” Polly said.

“I wasn’t scared,” JudgeHairy countered. “I love workouts where I spend half the time on my noggin.”

Aye.

Things were going smoothly until the pax were called upon to supply some creativity for the naming of our FNG. We all forgot to take our creativity pills. As lame names bantered about (and some NSFW names), the pax asking more and more pointed questions.

“What do you do for fun?”

“What do you to earn your money?”

“Construction work? What kind of construction work?”

“Tell us a good story about a time you crapped your pants?”

Wha- Wait…What? Polly, you can’t be serious.

“Heck yea, I’m serious! Everybody has a good crapped-your-pants story.”

Before the train got derailed any further, YHC used Q privilege to name the FNG “Gypsum.”

That could have gotten much worse.

It was great being out in the gloom with some old hands who have pushed me to become a better man and accept no excuses, along with a couple of new guys, the reason we are here.

It’s neat watching this thing we have here change and morph and become exactly what we need it to be at exactly the right time.

Aye!