Posts Tagged → unsolicited opinion

Mid-Weekishness & Weakishness

The week has been moving along pretty darn not bad, with daily workouts in the gym, including a 5-mile lumber on Tuesday that took me so long that the Dreadmill started going into cool down mode, and I had to hit stop and start again, just to keep walking my “sprightly for a fat man” 4 MPH. I guess most people don’t stay on a machine for over an hour, especially someone who is a shadow of their formerly fit self. I do love me some cardio, though, even if it is just a fast walk while listening to music and trying not to notice that there is a war going on via the rows of talking heads on the TVs in front of me.1

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What’s In a Name?

I have been thinking more and more about this site lately, and I find that I’m sort of in a conundrum. See, as many of you know, I started this blog back in April of 2005. My first “real” post was about a hilly 55-mile road ride back in Western Pennsylvania, some of which was in a cold rain. 

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Plans & Dog Poo

The best-made plans can often end up being steaming dog poo. It’s a fact. However, there are times, as in this case, that the ruined best-made plan was only a blog post; it was just OK-ish, and instead of dog poo, it just became an unpublished file of word salad on my hard drive.

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Stacy Was Right

In May 2021, I took the advice of my fictional editor and chose not to write a post concerning this topic. Now here we are in 2022, and this time I’ve decided to ignore the guidance of Stacy B. You have my most insincere apologies — Management.

In July of 2019, I started back to the gym for what I referred to here as “Operation Pec-Lift.” OPL was my code for lifting heavy things for no reason. I had just turned 48 years old and wanted to re-start strength training for my bones, overall health, and of course, to deflabafy2 my arms, pecs, and flaccid white man ass.

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Italian Quesadilla Guilt

Thursday night, I made an amazing burrito filled with perfectly seasoned chicken thighs cooked in the air fryer and homemade refried beans made in the instant pot. Despite my apparent aversion to using the stovetop and newfound mommy blogger-like love of unnecessary kitchen gadgetry, I was pretty stoked with how it turned out and devoured the savory log of carby Mexicana like a pack of rabid wolverines near a shallow grave (What?? – Ed.).

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Using Gifts

On Wednesday, I took myself and my newfound, much-cherished improved mindset out for a walk with my camera. I took the Nikon Z50 with an old DX zoom lens mounted with the FTZ adapter. I also took an old 105mm f/2.8 Lester A. Dine macro lens; that way, if things looked stale, I could kill some time with some manual focus handheld macro shots.

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Finding Traction

Yet another unneeded brief message from the President and CEO of thesoiledchamois.net, and Soiled Chamois Enterprises, Inc.™

Dear Reader,

The following lengthy post deals with my ongoing search for inner peace and self-love (not code for masturbation). There is talk of mental health and depression. I am CLEARLY not a doctor, just a putz with a blog and 50 years and counting of personal experiences dealing with some depression-type shit. 

I’ve waffled back and forth on whether it’s in my best interest to post something like this or not, but given the stuff I’ve already written about myself and/or my hatred of the orange buffoon that had been in the White House for four years, I think I’ll be alright. If a potential employer sees this and is offended, you’re not the sort I would want to be associated with anyway.

And if the Google machine somehow pointed you here because you were looking for immediate help, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-8255 or visit suicidepreventionlifeline.org.

— Management

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Dead Carps & Cabbages

Looking back through my January posts over the years, I have talked ad naseum about my loathing of January, so I will just say, a mid-Michigan January for someone dealing with depression is like throwing a drowning man a dead carp. Sure, it might be funny for a second, but the dude drowns, and you’re out your best dead carp.

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A Mitten Getaway

Why I keep this blog going is anyone’s guess. Back in the Google Blogger days, it documented my sub-par attempts at training for and racing endurance cycling events, however with age, medical issues, a complicated relationship with my bike, and a raging case of depression-inspired slack, it has degraded into I don’t know what. 

Blogging Times once referred to The Soiled Chamois as “unintelligible sophomoric word salad dotted with the occasional photo that doesn’t completely suck, written by a careerless, unlikeable misanthropic middle-class white guy.” 

All I’ll say about that is that if Blogging Times was a real thing, and I didn’t completely make their disparaging comments up, they would not be wrong. Yet here we are.

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One-Two Funk Punch

The week after the Christmas holiday, I was back on the Dreadmill in the Not So Stankment, pounding out daily 3-mile lumbers and intervals. After what seemed like months of being ill in one form or another, it felt great to get my heart rate up and to sweat again without a 101˚ fever.

So, after 21+ miles of lumbering nowhere slow, I was stoked to get back on the magic Zwift machine last Monday and get my legs back to doing what they do best. Or at least do better than running.

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