... would be a robotic quadruped like this one.
Yesterday, we went to Carlsbad Beach with the grandkids. 15 months old, it was their first trip to the beach and they had a blast. It was overcast and cool, so no one got sunburn or cranky from heat. They loved the water and the sand and watching their dad and I goof off in front of them. I even went bodysurfing for the first time this year, despite nursing a monstrous tobacco- and alcohol-induced hangover.
Beach access was via a 3-flight staircase instead of a ramp. The twins have a wheeled infantry carrier that looks like a huge wagon. Their dad and I carried it with them in it down the stairs and I carried it without them in it upstairs by myself. I've been lifting lately and was able to manage it, but later that afternoon, my right teres minor and teres major were letting me know I should not have done that. Strained muscles heal fast, so I'll be back at the gym before the end of the week, but carrying that brute up the stairs was a bit much.
What this world needs is an inexpensive quadruped robotic baby hauler.
What Tax Code Change Will Lead To More Hot Chicks?
Or, fat for thee, but nor for me.
On Friday, we went to FoodieLand, a festival of 70 or so restaurants at the local stadium. It was horrible. It took us an hour to park and the food was carnival food at best. The crowd was hideous.
On Twitter, I really enjoy Brad Wilcox who has done excellent research into the breakdown of the family in America. His essays always lean heavily towards public policy solutions as if that would do anything at all. FoodieLand begs to differ.
If you took all of the women at FoodieLand, where the general population was mostly in the 17-30 age range, and removed the obese, the tatted, the androgynous and the mopey, you'd have found 6-7 girls worth dating. The men were no different. Outside of a handful of sailors and marines who had it all working, the guys were toads.
What if families aren't being formed because the young people are ugly? I don't mean born ugly, I mean ugly because they can't be bothered to groom, watch their diet or learn how to be sociable. What tax break is going to help that?
Meanwhile, at Carlsbad, the ratio was the opposite. Again, it was single young adults and young, married couples. Only one guy was tatted, everyone else was clean. Almost everyone was in great shape and classically styled for the beach. It was a smorgasbord of talent.
Carlsbad is wealthy, the FoodieLand people were not. Carlsbad, if it follows the SoCal trend for young, hip and wealthy people, is almost certainly very socially liberal. Lizzo, the beached whale of a singer, would get their approval.
Not their imitation, mind you. These people aren't idiots. They're all in great shape and know to keep their romantic options wide open. But if Lizzo and the poor devils at FoodieLand want to look like effluent from a paper mill, well that's just fine.
Don't judge!
Well, unless it's yourself in the mirror and you're really hoping Jeff notices you today.
"I've been lifting lately and was able to manage it, but later that afternoon, my right teres minor and teres major were letting me know I should not have done that."
ReplyDeleteThat relates to a suspicion I have about working out in the gym: the exercises are over-idealized, and while they do strengthen the target muscles, they don't necessarily build the kind of strength that you need to have for actual physical labor. When I worked out in the gym for a while, it didn't really improve my ability to, say, shovel snow or move heavy buckets of rock around in the lab. But actually shoveling snow or carrying rock buckets certainly does.
I've toyed with the idea of a gym that is centered around common landscaping activities: shoveling dirt, digging holes, pushing wheelbarrows, carrying bags of topsoil, etc. That way, strength will be developed not just in the big, showy muscles, but also in the smaller muscles that stabilize you and prevent injury.
Tim, that may well be true. However, there are exercises you can do that sufficiently mimic such chores. For me, the gym is necessary for any strength at all. My joints are so beaten up after years of use that without the machines at the gym to provide stability, I wouldn't be exercising and I'd be weak as a kitten.
ReplyDeleteMy injury with the babies' armored personnel carrier came about as much from overconfidence as anything else. Still, I was able to lift the thing up 3 flights of stairs. That's not nothing.