Daily Ramblings – Workout Routine – Final Stretch

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breaks, family, Friends, health, Holidays, Home Workout, physical training, Relax, Video Games

This year has been a crazy year for exercise enthusiasts. My wife, who is a competitive bodybuilder, all of her competitions were cancelled, and all of her gyms were closed off and on. The one thing she kept consistent was her diet, which she rocks, by the way.

This week, I’ll be doing another alternative exercise program. For those of you who know me, you know I’m an avid video game player. My current game of choice is Call of Duty Black Ops Cold War. Because the game was just released, most of my holiday month (December) I will be gaming, hanging out with the family, and eating all the great food this time of year brings.

One of my buddies who served with me in the military had a cool habit that I joined in with him on. It was called commercial physical training. This is how it worked: We watch a television show, and each time a commercial came on, we would do one exercise for the duration of the commercial. I’m going to adapt this technique to video game playing. The “matches” we play on Call of Duty, last about 5 minutes each. So each time a match ends, I’ll do an exercise with as many reps as I can during the intermission between matches, which lasts about 2 minutes. I’ll concentrate on each body part, starting with the larger ones as I play. Once I’ve hit the entire body, I’m done for the day, unless I’m motivated and will add some stair step exercise to get in some cardio (walking up and down stairs for a minute or so).

You will be amazed at how taxing these routines are. I remember watching The Bob Newhart show overseas in our barracks, and you’d be amazed how many commercials play during one comedy show. My buddy and I were smoked by the time the show ended.

This will be my last week of posting for 2020. I take the last couple of weeks off each year, to review, organize, and plan for 2021. For those of you who follow this scheduled post every week and none of my other pages, I wish all of you a terrific, fun, and relaxing holiday season.

See you at the finish line!

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Spiritual Saturday – Watch What You Let In

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Books, Movies, Negativity, News, Positivity, social media, Spiritual Saturday, spirituality, Video Games

I read an article a little while back and the article was about a spiritual leader who realized that the negativity in our lives is due to what we let in. He went on further to explain that negative books, movies, video games, music–anything that brought in any type of negativity would result in projecting that negativity in the world. 

Have you ever analyzed how you feel after you’ve watched an hour of the news? How about reading the news? How about watching news on YouTube? How about discussing a posted news article on Facebook? I’ll tell you how I felt. I felt like throwing my laptop through a window. 

Who wants to be bombarded by COVID, lives being ruined by riots, cities on fire, etc. Who wants to watch news reports of “non-violent” riots with buildings burning in the background?

I gave up the news months ago and already notice a huge difference in my stress levels. I’m just calmer. I still scan the news, but don’t watch it, don’t listen to it, and do not obsess over it. Yep, COVID is still around. Yep, the riots are still going on across the country. Yep, Biden and Trump are still at one another’s throats for the election. Not much has changed.

If you are stressed out or negative, take a look at what you are letting in.You may be impacted by what you read, watch, or listen to. Pay attention to how you treat other people. If you notice a change or realize people are being more negative toward you, this is the indicator. You see, the world reflects what is inside you. The more negativity you let in, the more negativity you broadcast. Conversely, the more positive you bring in, the more you broadcast positivity. 

Take a look at what you are bringing in. My simple act of reducing my news consumption has made a huge difference in my life. 

Have a great Saturday, folks!

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Thankful Thursday – Grateful For Video Games

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Cards, Chess, Dungeons & Dragons, Far Cry 4, Games, Nintendo, Playstation, Pong, Scrabble, Video Games, Xbox

If you’ve never played a video game, this post probably won’t have much meaning for you. I have loved playing games my whole life. It started with board games like Monopoly, Life, and Stratigo. My grandfather got me started with checkers and chess. Later, mom and my grandmother got me started with Scrabble.

As I matured, I ran across Dungeons and Dragons. Boy, that was a game. During my early years, we didn’t have cellphones or computers. We had games like Dungeons and Dragons, which captured our imaginations as we created characters and worked our way through various adventures created by one of our friends.

Later in life, came the Arcades. These new types of games were awesome. I got good enough at a few that I rarely spent any money to play them for hours. Other games never ended, and I got tired of those. From here, we moved to computer games. The first console I owned was an Atari, and we played basic games like Pong and many others. The first types of games I liked to play were the very basic games available at the time. Then came the Nintendo system with all of its Mario games, Zelda, and others.

From here I moved over to the Sony Playstation and finally ended up on the Xbox. The game I’m playing currently is called Far Cry 4 and boy, is it a fun one. The basic story is you are returning to the country of your birth, called Kyrat. You are there to spread your mother’s ashes in Lakshmana. Once you arrive, you are accosted by the country’s dictator. You escape his palace and become involved with a resistance group called the Golden Path. In this game, you can hunt, you can drive vehicles, fly a “buzzer” or a one-manned helicopter, you can grapple and climb mountains, and even use a wingsuit to fly from the top of a mountain to get around, the mountainous terrain.

What’s nice about a video game is the length of time you can play a game for such a minimal price. Yeah, 30, 40, or 50 dollars may seem steep for a “game”, but when you consider that the first time I played through Far Cry 4 it took 53 hours to beat it, the money is well worth it.

So today, I am grateful for the many games I have played that have given me so much pleasure throughout my years on this Earth. The board games I played with my family, Dungeons and Dragons with my friends, and now the Xbox, which allows me to play Co-op games with my Brother who is over 3,000 miles away.

Have a great Thursday, folks!

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Thankful Thursday – The Joy of Video Gaming

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Alien: Isolation, First-person Shooters, Grateful, Metro Trilogy, Survival Horror, Thanks, Video Games, Xbox

Image by Marko Deichmann from Pixabay 

Today, my inner child is coming out. I am thankful for my XBOX and all the game developers out there who create terrific video games. Recently I beat Metro Exodus, the third game in the Metro Trilogy. It has a great story, awesome graphics, and really sucks you in. The entire trilogy was awesome. If you have not played Metro 2033, Metro Last Light, and Metro Exodus, you are missing out. It is a tremendous story, filled with characters you’ll enjoy interacting with.

I just started playing Alien: Isolation. Wow! What a scary game! In this game, you are Ripley’s daughter. You get the opportunity to travel to a ship nearby which holds the final flight recorder of your Mom’s ship. I won’t spoil this for you. You just have to play it to experience it. It is a really creepy game so far. If you have not seen the movie Alien, you may want to watch it. This game was built to add on to the story in the original film.

The trailer above will give you an idea about what I’m talking about. It’s a great game so far.

Here’s to video gaming!

Until next time…

Dave

 

Daily Ramblings – Phoenix – Day 7

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Amazon, Brother, family, Friends, Happy Hour, Phoenix, Video Games

Yesterday, was a nice day. The weather was awesome and I had a nice dinner with my wife. She is a special education teacher by day and a female bodybuilder at night. We had to separate because of my Dad’s condition, requiring me to come home and help out my parents.

It may be strange to some that my wife and I are separated for this reason but I learned a long time ago that the rules we create for ourselves are just that–rules we impose on ourself–not imposed by others. Society has a way of imposing things on us. There are expectations of owning a home, having a traditional family, doing what everyone else is doing. What I have found is that these social norms are not the norm for most of us. When I made the decision to balk at the expectations of society and truly live my own life, life became lighter, relaxing, free.

Today, I’m meeting some friends at one of our favorite haunts. It’ll be a great time to reconnect, learn about what’s going on in their lives and spend some time together laughing. Right now, my brother and I are watching Patriot on Amazon and will kick into some gameplay on his Xbox a little later. We are enjoying Shadow of the Tomb Raider. The graphics and storyline in this game are beyond awesome!

That’s it for today, folks!

Until next time…

Dave