Big Stick Physics

Author: Richard Nestoff (Page 5 of 57)

Maxing out on the bench.

November 27, 2024 / / 0 Comments

On Tuesday, I maxed out on the bench press at 175 pounds, which is 5 pounds more than my high school maximum.

To be fair, I mostly screwed around in my high school Physical Fitness class.  We were supposed to be running or lifting, but by telling the coach that we were running in the back gym, we could do flips and jumps onto the high jump pit.  

My brother and I are 16 months into our work-out routine.  That’s the longest I’ve ever stuck to any fitness program.  Working out so consistently, I wasn’t concerned about damaging something by attempting a max lift.

I’m currently doing two sets at 155 pounds.  It’s rough, but I can get about 10 reps in for each set.  Based on that, I should be able to max out at around 200 pounds, but I want to slowly approach the max.

Conventional wisdom is to do three sets of 8 to 12 reps, three times per week.  We only do two sets to get more different exercises in.  Two visits to the gym per week gives us more recovery time. 

Make Lunch Great Again

November 27, 2024 / / 0 Comments

Bold action like this would get teachers to eat in the cafeteria again.

The NRHS cafeteria used to serve the best bagel sandwiches.  You know how some restaurants serve the best bread or rolls?  It’s not just butter or garlic, they do something to make the rolls feel, smell and taste just right.  NRHS bagel sandwiches were like that.  I think they steamed them or something, then wrapped them in aluminum foil.  They weren’t greasy or sloppy, just warm, soft and savory.

Michelle Obama ruined all that.  The cafeteria ladies at Normandy and NRHS used to cook.  Lunch might be casseroles, pasta or pizza that they made that morning.  What ruined everything was requiring nutritional information, like you’d get on packaged food, for each item.  Restaurants can afford to determine that information for each recipe, but school cafeterias can’t.  Bagel sandwiches stopped soon after that.

Movie: The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie 8/10.

November 26, 2024 / / 0 Comments

Sparky and I are having a lovely morning.  He is napping by the fire, and I’m watching, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. 

While browsing online, someone mentioned this movie from 1969 as Maggie Smith’s break-out role.  She won an Academy Award for it.

Maggie Smith plays a woman with progressive attitudes teaching at a conservative all-girl school in Scotland.  The teacher, Miss Brodie is in her prime, so fashionable and fetching, spouting a bunch of romantic and leftist nonsense popular in the 1930’s.

The viewer just has to accept the premise that Miss Brodie is fetching.  Maggie Smith was 35, looks 45, and is supposed to be 30.  On the attractiveness scale, she’s a California 3, a Navy 8, an Ohio 5, which probably makes her a Scottish 9.

Old movies that take place in schools are interesting, as are Scottish movies.  The school, teacher and students are very different from the 1967 Sidney Poitier movie, To Sir, With Love, but the formal, old-school culture is similar.   A good sequel to both movies would be a mash-up where Miss Brodie is on staff with Mr. Thackeray.  Miss Brodie would be challenged to date a Black guy, but Poitier is very smooth.  In many ways, they are opposites, but that may have something to do with the era depicted in both movies.

Miss Brodie is teaching in the interval between world wars, and is infatuated with fascists.  She is very taken by Mussolini and Franco.  Since the movie filmed in England, 29 years after the Battle of Britain, mentioning that energetic fellow who just became the chancellor of Germany, might have been too much.

While Miss Brodie explains that Mussolini was a man of action and made Capri a sanctuary for birds, he was making plans to invade Ethiopia.  I bet she felt stupid a couple of years later.

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie has depth and substance that modern movies lack.  Parts of it offend modern sensibilities, but everyone seems more intelligent and thoughtful than we would see today.  I enjoyed it, and would give it an 8/10.

The movie has a 7.6 IMDB rating, and is currently available on Youtube.

Lia in Brussels addresses the movie in greater depth.

November 25, 2024 / / 0 Comments

Looking for analysis and commentary on the recent election, I stumbled on Megyn Kelly on Youtube.  When she was a journalist for ABC or Fox, she was attractive and engaging, but not that different than anyone else.  She was managed by the network, like everyone else.

Now that she is running her own show, she has become one of my favorites.  Megyn is smart and well-connected, and has the freedom to cover what interests her.  She is much more animated, making casual.  At 54 years-old, she looks great.  Megyn brings to mind the Audrey Hepburn quote, “I believe that happy girls are the prettiest girls.”

Sparky scarpers.

November 23, 2024 / / 0 Comments

Sparky no longer wants to go past the top of the hill.  I’m starting to think he’s smelling something in the woods, rather than being intimidated by yellow jackets.  He will go on if he’s on a leash, but he isn’t nuts about it.

It might be a good idea to leave him with his phobia.  If he goes on a walkabout, and won’t go passed the top of the hill, he is a lot easier to recover.

That is all from one walk.  I like how Sparky looks back at me like I’m crazy.

The first snow

November 21, 2024 / / 0 Comments

The sticky snow that we had last night leaves the world looking bleak.  I love it.  Sparky is sleeping in, so I decided to tramp around outside to take some pictures before it melts off.

Work kept Sparky pretty busy last night.  I’d like to see his job description, he seems to have a helluva lot more to look after than I do.  My job responsibilities are opening doors and retrieving toys that roll under the furniture.  That doesn’t sound like much, but I’m counting the lid to Sparky’s food locker as a door, along with the patio and car doors. 

Sparky doesn’t respect my work.  If all the doors were gone, he’d be fine.  Sparky wouldn’t see a problem with burying his snout in the dog food trough.  Car rides are fun, and driving doesn’t seem too hard.  Toys rolling under the furniture is a bigger problem than he will admit.  Sparky is certain that if he continued to paw at the furniture and scamper around, the toy would come out.  More likely he’d just grab one of his other 40 toys.

To be fair, I don’t respect Sparky’s work.  Pawing at his bed took 10 minutes of dedicated attention.  I don’t know why, but he thought it was critical.  Throughout the night, Sparky had to get up several times to check the house.  He doesn’t disturb anything and dogs don’t see ghosts or spirits the way cats do, so it’s a mystery what problem he was trying to solve. 

When Sparky wakes up, he will see that there is snow on the ground.  Since this is the first snow, I have to remind him that I don’t mind walking in the snow, so pooping in the house is not doing me a favor.

Somebody understands my dog.

November 20, 2024 / / 0 Comments

Beagles 101

I tried doing my dog breed research before getting Sparky, but all the information was so vague.  This article from a beagle rescue in Oregon, gets the breed.  Dog writers really need an editor, but they make good points.

Beagles need guidance as they are extremely smart.

Everything Sparky does is deliberate.  He makes no mistakes.  Sparky won’t try to do a thing, I just turn my back, and he’s done it.

Trash, food, candy dishes..nothing is sacred to a beagle. They are NOT the type of dog you can be watching TV with while eating a pizza and expect to get up to answer the phone and returning to anything other than an empty pizza box..if that!

Sparky is a trash hound.  He pays no attention to the garbage can, unless he can get to it.  Then, when I’m not looking, he takes what he wants.  Three times, Sparky has stolen a loaf of bread because I put grocery bags on the floor.  He ignores it until I take some canned food downstairs.  Sparky also stole a bag of marshmallows. 

Some are bolters and dashers, others are wanderers. It’s not that they are running away from you or your home..it’s just that they are running “to” something that caught their noses.

Sparky has gotten out of the house five times.  He is so charming and polite that he lulls me into complacency.  He’s never bolts out of the door.  I watch a TV show, then notice that Sparky is gone because I left a door open somewhere.

Beagles simply cannot be trusted to be off-leash, or to consistently obey their owners when they are outside.

Sparky’s brush anchor makes him think he can’t run away.  He gets stuck often enough that he doesn’t try to wander off.  When given a command, Sparky doesn’t obey.  He either agrees or doesn’t.

It may seem at times that they forgot everything you taught them. Not true. They just make decisions on their own sometimes.

Beagles are not programmed to please their people…they are more like party animals who manipulate you into thinking they want to please you.

Sparky is bullshitting me all the time.

Beagles are house dogs; not “outside” dogs. They are very social and people-oriented. They are very pack oriented and consider YOU their pack so naturally, they are not happy in the yard by themselves.

This doesn’t seem like it’s true, because Sparky loves sniffing around in the yard and woods, but I think it is.  I put up a dog-run cable for Sparky.  He can roam a 100 feet, even into the woods a bit, and 10 feet on either side.  If I put him on the cable and go in the house, he sits in the yard looking at the patio door. 

Sparky is a cute puzzle.

Democrats are in charge.

November 18, 2024 / / 0 Comments

The Republicans took the House, Senate and presidency, but only because Democrats made it happen.  Not the Democratic Party, they are off in the weeds, but people who were Democrats not too long ago.  Trump wasn’t a Republican when he was a TV personality and real estate developer in NYC.  He was the first president to take office in favor of gay marriage. 

Establishment Republicans don’t have to learn a lesson from this because Trump has pushed most of them out of office.

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