The Captain: Rebirth Issue 4.5

Previously in The Captain: Rebirth......I lost weight. Had surgery. Got depressed. Moped around. Got a baby. Moved. Had surgery again. Lost my job.

Issue #4.5 - The Final Insult

The end of 2015 was approaching which means the annual gift of holiday depression was about to make its unwelcome arrival. There were a number of items that led up to my depression this year. Back around Thanksgiving or so I got an email from Spartan Race announcing their 2016 race dates. I had considered doing a Spartan Race several times but never went through with it. On my podcast Too Nerdy For TV I even mentioned in an episode near the end of 2014 that I wanted to do a Spartan Trifecta in 2015. In a rather odd moment I was trolled by a form email. The subject line of the email from Spartan read "Last year you said this year." I was called out. I was called out by a pseudo-spammy form email. I talked to some friends at work who run Spartans all the time and decided that I am going to actually give it a shot in 2016 to do the trifecta. Shortly after that I got an unexpected punch to the gut.

My wife and I are working on getting financially secure enough to buy a house. We have enlisted the help of a financial adviser. This is a one-stop shop kind of place that does insurance, investing, retirement planning, and everything in between. We have been adulting super hard lately. We met with this guy about getting grown up life insurance and I was under the impression there were no medical questions or anything like that. WRONG! We have to give all this information about our past medical status and give fluid samples. We each gave our height and weight and that is when the punch came. The guy says, as though he is asking if we can put down a larger down payment on the car so our monthly payments go down, "Could you get down below 300 in the next 2-4 weeks?" Really? Sure, let me just drop 20 lbs just like that. No big deal. It's not like I have struggled with my weight my entire life. I can go up and down whenever I want I just choose to be overweight because it keeps me warm during the winter. I was embarrassed, I was hurt, and I was angry. I'd like to say I channeled that anger into something positive but honestly all it did was make me hate myself. Everything I ate, every workout I did not do, pretty much everything I did just made me really down on myself and did nothing for my already growing depression.

As if there were not enough amazing moments in 2015 this was also the year of clothing failures. For only the 2nd time in my life the rear seam of my pants lost their structural integrity. I was on my way to work and got out to drop off the mail and when I got back in I heard a rip. I inspected and found my pants to have ripped clean waist to....undercrotch. I ran back home and changed and spent the rest of the day humiliated. No one saw it but the shame remained. In my pant's defense they were old pants but still.... Fast forward about a month maybe and it happened AGAIN. This time AT work and in the pants I had bought to replace the pair that had ripped. This time it was MAJOR. Luckily for me I work about 3 blocks from a HUGE Wal-Mart. I took my button-down shirt off, tied it around my waist and headed off to Wal-Mart to buy an emergency pair of pants. I purchased said pants in the largest size I have ever bought, went to the bathroom, changed pants, tossed the old ones, returned to my car and proceeded to cry for the next 10 minutes. I was nearing rock bottom. Both of these happened before the aforementioned "how fast can you drop 20 lbs" incident so that was made SO much better. Fast forward another couple of weeks and pair number 3 splits. Luckily this was a small rip, no one noticed, and I got home just fine. Now these last 2 pairs came from the same outlet mall so perhaps they were defective and I got what I paid for. However, that still does not make the whole situation less humiliating and devastating.

Speaking of pants, 2015 decided to kick me one last time before the end of the year. My wife insisted on taking me clothes shopping for my birthday (which is 2 weeks after Christmas but we made use of after-Christmas sales). I despise clothes shopping. I find no joy in it and this was no different. We went to Kohl's and there was not a pair of pants in the entire store in my size. That was soul crushing. To know that you are officially fatter than the clothes at the store really takes the wind out of you. My wife happily searched the store for shirts she thought I would look good in and I tried every one of them on, hating myself more and more with every look in the mirror. The clothes are very nice and I love my wife for wanting me to look my best. She loves picking out clothes for me. She also understands how touchy the subject is and she even mentioned how bad she felt that I could not find large enough pants.

That brings us to the end of 2015. I know I need to fix a lot of things is my life and this blog is an attempt at accountability and working through some of those things. My 1st post of the new year will be all the things I want to accomplish in 2016. Rather than New Year's Resolutions I am considering them goals. I will keep the goal list updated for everyone to keep up with the progress. Until then may the Power protect you and may the Force be with you.

\m/ THERE IS NO TRY \m/

The Captain: Rebirth Issue 4

Previously in The Captain: Rebirth......I lost weight. Had surgery. Got depressed. Moped around. Got a baby. Moved. Had surgery again.

Issue #4 - 2015: The Most Humbling Year....Not Necessarily in a Good Way

This issue actually opens in November of 2014. I had just had surgery on my right knee for a similar injury as my left knee. This was different though. My left knee was due to heavy lifting and stress during 2 back-to-back moves. This was just me. I had done this. My weight had put too much strain on my knees and caused this damage. This hit me pretty hard. I was in a REALLY bad place. Add that to the usual holiday depression and anxiety it was just a perfect storm of sadness. I went into 2015 feeling worse than I did going into 2013. Little did I know the hits would just keep on coming.

In December my boss had a sit down with me about my job performance. It had slipped due to my depression and people were beginning to notice. I started 2015 knowing things needed to change at work if nothing else. I really did try, but my heart was not in it and I knew it was time to start looking at other options. The baby, now pretty much a toddler, was continuing to be the enemy of everything so I was not getting any workouts in. In my continuing poser theme I bought a new piece of workout equipment that has just sat in my garage ever since. Once again I made all these grand plans that I did not follow through with. Every time I was going to start a workout program (4am is the best time for me to work out which sucks) the baby would not sleep through the night or he would get up stupid early. I would basically tell myself, "well you could not start today so you should just not even bother." I am REALLY good at persuading myself not to work out. It's the great ironies of being fat: A: you eat because you are unhappy that you are fat, which makes you fatter, and 2: you have no energy to work out because you are fat but if you would work out you would not be fat and would have more energy. The universe is really stupid sometimes.

I coasted through the 1st several months of 2015 business as usual. In April things with work really got exciting. Back near the end of 2014 I became a Google for Education Certified Trainer. I was so proud. This was the biggest professional accomplishment I had ever achieved. In February I presented several sessions at the annual educational technology conference in Austin. Things were looking great professionally except at my actual job. My wife and had decided to use our tax refund to pay off my car. I had never done this before and was super excited. I went to the bank and wrote the final check and went back to work. I was asked to come speak with my boss at 2pm that afternoon. It was not a good meeting. Long story short in the course of about 5 hours I went from elated that I paid off my car to crushed because I had lost my job. Not only had I lost my job but I had to run out my contract which still had 2 months on it. That was awful.

This disappointment led into the summer where I still had no job. Most people do not realize jobs are like relationships and job hunting is like dating. You go out looking for jobs (single people) and go on interviews (dates) and hope they like you enough to at least continue to see you for a while. Job hunting is the worst. I hated it. I had so many times I was SURE I had the job only to be fed a line about going another way. I was beginning to question my entire career choice and wondering if I had made a terrible mistake in choosing this profession. I did eventually find a new job, but that did not change the fact that based on my contract with both jobs I was going to be without pay for the North end of 90 days. Let me explain that again: after being laid off and finding a new job I was still going 3 months without pay. The only shining light in all this job business was I got the summer off to spend with my kids.

The summer ended and it was time for me to start my new job. I was NOT looking forward to this job. I felt like I had settled. I did not want to go back in the classroom but I had to have a job. The fall semester of work was unlike anything I had expected. I LOVE my job! Everything was coming together so serendipitously. I really felt like things were looking up. The only downside is I drive an hour to and from work every day which is not very fun. This job also allowed me to get my very 1st professional training gig which was a lot of fun. Things are going really well, despite a few setbacks I can't talk about here, and I am actually enjoying work. For the 1st time in possibly ever I feel like this is where I am supposed to be professionally. This whole experience was very humbling. I had never lost a job before and it truly made me appreciate what I had.

2015 had one more sucker punch in store, but since this post started getting a bit long-winded I decided to break it into 2 posts. Hell if Harry Potter, Twilight, Hunger Games, and Divergent can do it, why not? Peter Jackson can stretch a single book in to 9 hours worth of a movie; I can split a wordy blog post into 2. That being said stay tuned for the final installment -- The Captain: Rebirth Issue #4.5: The Final Insult

\m/ THERE IS NO TRY \m/

The Captain: Rebirth Issue 3

Previously in The Captain: Rebirth....I lost a lost of weight then had knee surgery and spent an entire year feeling sorry for myself. An. Entire. Year.

Issue #3 - 2014: The Captain vs. The Baby

In the later part of 2013 I decided I was going to get back on the horse and try to do an obstacle course race. I even thought if I signed up for one and spent the money I would be motivated to actually go through with it. Guess what? WRONG. I estimate that I have spent about $200 in races I have never actually run. I had these grand ideas of running all these races and did not do a damn thing to make it happen.

In January 2014 I got this wild idea that I was actually going to stop feeling sorry for myself and do what I set out to do in 2012 and run an obstacle course race. As I laid out in a previous post I got REALLY ambitious and signed up for 3 races that year. 1 got canceled, 1 I bailed on, but the 3rd I actually did. Out of shape, in now way prepared for it I ran Survival Race Dallas on April 27, 2014, with a time of {around 1 hour 30 minutes. I can’t find my finisher dog tag with my time on it}. It was really difficult but I was very proud of myself. I met some awesome people that helped me through the course and had a great time.

I had hoped that would have helped me move forward and kick start things but as the song says "life has a funny way of sneaking up on you when you think everything's okay and everything's going right." It turns out my child hated sleep. For those of you unaware, babies and toddlers are the enemies of everything. They are the enemies of sleep. They are the enemies of productivity. They are the enemies of EV. RY. THING. I had a number of false starts on fitness and such because I was always so frakking tired. I even had to convert my desk at work to a standing desk because I kept falling asleep. Seriously, this child never slept. It was awful.

Needless to say I was more worried about getting as much sleep as possible than anything else so I really did not get much else accomplished in my life. The one thing I DID do was persuaded my wife to buy me a Groupon for Title Boxing Club. It was 2 free weeks and a personal training session. After my 1st 2 weeks I signed up for a 3-month membership. I was going Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 6am for a one hour boxing/kickboxing class. I LOVED it. I tried boxing many, many, many years ago and fell in love with it. I have tired to keep it as part of my fitness routine ever since. The only issue was the longer I went the less I was able to go because again babies are the enemy. The simple act of going to the gym at 6am 3 days a week was clearly not that simple. Despite my desire to continue going I was missing too many days to justify the cost. Though it was not sustainable it was the best I did all year and actually starting making decent progress. Somewhere in all this I got a Fitbit Zip and started working on tracking my steps. I was really enjoying it and was even doing step goal competitions with my friends. However, having a Fitbit and not actually doing anything kinda makes you a poser.

The summer was more of the same as I had to work for the 1st summer in 7 years (usually had the summer off as a teacher). Summer came to an end and we had to start looking for a new house because our super old landlord was selling our rent house out from under us with almost no notice. Other than the stress of having to move and the WORST time of the year* this move created a new problem. I was lucky enough to have a man cave at our old place and a big field out back to work out. Our new place was going to be quite limited on space. So of course I made the best of it and was that much more dedicated, right? Not so much. Just another excuse.

As we approached the last quarter of 2014 things got SUPER awesome. I was shopping with my family and all of a sudden I was on the floor. My right knee had given out on me and it hurt very much bad. It was a different kind of pain than I had with my left knee back in '012 but it was a much more intense pain. After I fell a few more times over the course of a several weeks my wife and I decided I needed to go to the doctor. I suspected I had psoriatic arthritis as I have suffered from the heartbreak of psoriasis for many years. I went to the doctor and he almost immediately dismissed that theory. He sent me for an MRI and I was referred to another ortho specialist. As the deja vu really set in I was told, almost exactly 2 years after the left knee, I had a torn meniscus in my right knee and would once again need surgery.

Here is the cliffhanger panel of the comic. Stay tuned for the final issue where we find out how I reacted to my surgery and how 2015 went. Spoiler: not well on either front.

\m/ THERE IS NO TRY \m/

*My wife is a band director and we were moving during marching season which is the busiest time of year for her.

The Captain: Rebirth Issue 2

Previously in The Captain: Rebirth....I lost a lot of weight, felt really good about myself, and was preparing to run an obstacle course 5K. Then I had to have knee surgery and it all came crashing down.

Issue #2 - 2013: The Pity Party

2012 ended on a number of sour notes. However during the last week of the year my wife and I found out we were having a baby. We were both very excited. As 2013 began I was firmly rooted in a depression as a result of my knee injury and subsequent surgery. I treated that depression like anyone would: I ate all the things. I was an emotional Baskin Robbins with 31 flavors of feelings. Of course all this accomplished was undoing all the hard work I had done the previous year. I basically coasted through 2013 feeling sorry for myself. The only good thing that came out of it was in my search for post-op workout options I found DDP Yoga. Someone suggested yoga so I started looking around for yoga I could tolerate. I am a huge wrestling fan and enjoyed doing Rushfit with GSP so the idea of something similar from one of my favorite wrestlers was very intriguing. I borrowed the DVDs and did a few of the workouts and was surprised by how much I enjoyed it. Since then I have had countless false starts at completing the program but I am definitely a fan.

Health and fitness were a major problem in 2013 but professionally things were really improving. I started presenting at professional conferences and making a lot of new connections. This led to me leaving the job I had been with for 7 years for a new opportunity. This was a very exciting development. I started that job in August and was optimistic that I had found a new home. That would not exactly be the case but that is a story for later. This new job introduced me to a whole new area of my profession of which I was previously unaware. I became engrossed in all things Google. I have been a fan of Google products for a long time but I had never looked under the hood. The school district I was with used Google Apps for Education and our director was big on professional development. I did not know I was getting my first taste of what would later be the driving force of my career.

As if the pity party and career change were not enough we had a baby on the way to add to the mix. We spent most of the year planning and preparing for his arrival. Doctor's appointments, rearranging bedrooms, and learning all about things I never really wanted to know about ( I somehow missed all that fun with my first two kids). We anxiously awaited Labor Day, which was both the day my wife went in to labor and the holiday. She did not find this funny. So Blake arrived and the remainder of 2013 is kind of a blur because sleep was not on the agenda.

This update does not have much detail in it because quite frankly I felt so sorry for myself for most of the year and this post reflects how much I did to take care of myself. A year after my surgery and I was no better off than I was a year before the surgery. In the next installment we will explore the age old battle of man vs. baby and sleep continues to be a jerk and elude me.

\m/ THERE IS NO TRY \m/

The Captain: Rebirth Issue 1

This blog will get its full relaunch in January but to prepare and bring everyone up to speed I will close out 2015 with a 4-issue mini series establishing the new status quo (though a lot of this has been covered in previous posts). With that, here is issue #1 - 2012: Progress and Pain

We begin with the TARDIS controls set to 2012. Early that year I entered a Biggest Loser contest at work. I had done so once before but did not really do much. This time I was all in. I had recently found the app LoseIt and was tracking my food and my workouts but had not really used it much. I began tracking everything and lost over 30 pounds during the contest. I did lose the contest but I was very proud of my progress. My workout of choice was GSP Rushfit and the Couch to 5K program. I was working out 6 days a week and running almost every day and got down close to 250lbs. I was able to run non stop for 10 minutes which is an AMAZING accomplishment for me. I will admit that I let things slip a bit over that summer but stayed the course.

Since I was completing the Couch to 5K program I figured I should sign up for a race. I started looking for local races and discovered the crazy world of obstacle course races. I started doing some research and found the Mighty Mud Dash was being held near me in November. I was immediately hooked and started training to run the race. I got to within a month of the race and tragedy struck. I had been experiencing a lot of pain and popping in my left knee but I was trying to muscle through it. The pain reached an apex when I fell off the treadmill. My wife and I decided it was time to go to the doctor. I went to the doctor and they sent me for an MRI and referred me to an orthopedic specialist. The specialist gave me to bad news: I had torn my left medial meniscus and would need surgery to fix it....and the race was off.

I was devastated. I had worked so hard for so long and just when the goal was in sight it was taken away. Early November 2012 I had surgery to repair my damaged knee and spent the rest of the year setting up decorations for what would become and VERY long pity party. 2012 did end on a pleasant note, however. A day or so after Christmas my wife and I found out we were having a baby! If this were a comic book this would be the last panel where my wife and I are looking at the pregnancy test with a tease for the next issue.

And here is the preview for the next issue. As 2013 begins I am faced with many new challenges, changes, and a chance to overcome the setback of late 2012. How will I handle all these new things in my life? Found out in Issue #2 - 2013: The Pity Party. Spoiler alert: not well.

\m/ THERE IS NO TRY \m/