FitTest results from one week into the current iteration of my strength program (last test was on 10/20/2008, a bit more than 9 months ago):

Weight: 170 lbs. (-13 lbs.)
BMI: 27.4 (-1.1)

Measurements: Up an inch around hips (probably from all the squats and deadlifts), down 0.75 in. around waist, down 1.5 in. around chest and 2.25 in. around shoulders. Calf, thigh, and arm slightly skinnier, forearm slightly broader.

Fitness Scores
Overall: 39 → 57
(1-100, 50 is average, higher is better, compared to other males my age)
Bodyfat (3-Pinch Measure): 23 → 30 (21.7% → 19.8%)
Bodyfat (Impedance Measure): 10 → 24 (27% → 21.3%)
Resting Heart Rate: 72 → 50 (62 BPM → 68 BPM) (weird, but despite the huge change in score, the measurement isn't that different)
Active Heart Rate: 28 → 60 (116 BPM → 97 BPM)
60-Second Situps: 60 → 73 (40 reps → 44 reps)
Maximum Pushups: 10 → 84 (10 reps → 37 reps) (?!)
Sit-Reach Flexion: 75 (19.5 in.)

Current plan is three more weeks of my latest strength rotation, then move more focus to cardio goals. My trainer wants me to be running a marathon (or half-marathon) in a year, which is a bit O_o since my running endurance is still really bad. (Although given the improvements in my cardiovascular fitness, I could probably start training towards such a goal without dying...)

Again, I delay posting because I can't decide what to post about, but there's stuff to say. So this is a little disorganized:

Fitness: Went climbing on Wednesday:
( Courses )
Working out, I've succeeded in some of my major goals. I can back-squat or deadlift two plates (225 lbs.), and as of today I can bench press my weight (170 lbs.). My medium (8 reps) on bench press has gone up from 50 lbs. to 170 lbs. in the last 9 months, which isn't bad at all.

I've been trying to revive my social life since getting back from camp. Patti, Dan, and Tegan's housewarming party last Sunday was fun, and I'll be hanging out with Tegan again this evening. I'll also be hanging out with Lynn on Monday, which is cool, scheduling is tricky since she's farther out from the city proper.

Still memorizing kanji, using Mnemosyne to get back up to date on the one's I've previously learned. Trying to avoid confusing 後 and 終; 北, 比, and 化; 可, 同, and 向; etc., etc. Probably more posts on studying Japanese later.

Speaking of posts later, I'll probably get back to doing my chapter-by-chapter of Megatrends, mainly because I do plan to finish the book and don't like quitting when I'm halfway through. Good writing practice if nothing else.

And news: How about that Goldman Sachs story? Record quarterly profits, record compensation for executives ($18 BILLION; $600,000 per employee, although not actually so evenly distributed, obviously; they paid back the TARP funds first to avoid restrictions on executive pay, but that's a paltry portion of their bailout billions). Goldman seemed to be one of the few firms that realized the subprime mortgage market was "toxic", they sold what they could and then heavily shorted what they sold (the financial equivalent of selling your neighbor a time-bomb and then taking out a large life-insurance policy). What they couldn't dump on the unwitting, they insured with AIG. Given that they knew how bad the subprime bubble was, they must have known that AIG risked becoming insolvent, but that was okay since the US Treasury was run by former Goldman execs (Paulson, among others). Goldman manages to pull of the functional equivalent of crimes in such a way that it's not clear they're crimes at all: Were they misrepresenting the subprime securities they sold, or just taking advantage of less clever competition? Was the relationship between Goldman, AIG, and the US Treasury an elaborate kickbacks scheme planned in advance, or was Goldman just taking advantage of preexisting (and stupid) government policy (most importantly, the "too big to fail" doctrine)?

What really surprises me about the above is the low incidence of actual outrage, even in the easy-to-anger domain of the blogosphere. There's a lot of "we should be outraged", the facts of the matter are pretty outrageous. But it seems that Americans are used to the idea that organizations like Goldman are willing to help destroy the economy for their own (evidently really significant) benefit. Or maybe there's no reason to care about the economy beyond employment and grocery prices... who cares if the government gives billions to the wealthy financial class, who cares about the machinations of the rich? Maybe there's some subconscious belief that it's all a house of cards, and the state of our existence in the lower stories of said house isn't worth much concern, even if the whole thing is seeming rather shaky...

Unrelated, but also political, sort of: While I was at camp, had an argument with a climate skeptic who believes that the last few years of evidence say solar cycles are driving climate in a cooler direction, regardless of anthropogenic global warming. A few thoughts on that:
1. The scientific modeling work is really interesting, there's still a lot to discover.
2. Activists for political change related to global warming will be really reluctant to believe it. And for good reason. Politically motivated climate skeptics were in favor of sun cycle theories of climate change way before the last few years, when the trend was clearly warming, seemingly for reasons of fatalistic denial as opposed to solid science.
3. The guy I was arguing with took the "they'll totally destroy the economy" whine line, which is really annoying. Even if that was climate liberals' goal (it really isn't), the chances of regulation that would actually be economy destroying getting passed and implemented is slim to none. (Unless it massively benefited the rich, I suppose.) I expect whatever gets passed will be minimal, commonsense stuff wrapped in lofty language.
4. Sun-driven cooling is either good news in the sort term (temporary reprieve to global warming, giving us time to get some of those factors in check) or really bad (little ice age during an energy crisis!).

More to write about various books, but I'll do that later, maybe.

That's enough of a brain-dump for now.

Currently: Heading home for Melissa's graduation. Got back to reading that court decision, but will still be a while before I'm done. It's reasonably interesting reading.

Work: Is frustratingly hard lately, but I was able to get one of my smaller significant tasks (a particularly hard backport) done before this vacation.

Fitness: Got back to exercise on Monday, although this vacation means I'll be taking a break. Probably won't be doing the heavy cycle of my routine again until two weeks from today, a month since the last time. At least my arm seems to have recovered from that injury.

Haven't been home since Thanksgiving, so it will be good to spend some quality time with everyone, especially Melissa, since this is probably the last time I'll see her before she heads off to college.

Arm still sore form yesterday. And when my arm is sort, I can't exercise (or at least shouldn't). And when I don't exercise, I get antsy. *fidget*

In other news, the current project I'm doing for work is terribly confusing, I am not looking forward to the testing phase at all. I've been spending a lot of the day distracted, but all of the time (including off-time) with work running through my head and gradually sieving out into something that (maybe) might make sense. It's an odd process. It even makes me look forward to the next item on my list which I have pretty much figured out and is going to be a lot of tedious work, but at least that one is relatively straightforward.

Climbed today, but didn't do so well. Bought gear of my own, since I seem to be making this a regular thing.

Repeated:
I'll Huff and I'll Puff (5.6)

Attempted:
Protan Defect (5.7)
Jugs of Red Rum (5.6)

Went to see the new Terminator movie in the afternoon, which I enjoyed, was pretty much exactly as expected (killer robots, post-apocalyptic setting, plot holes big enough to steer a truck through, somewhat depressing, stuff blows up).

Housemates are away, so things are quiet. My stomach is rumbling, so I should probably go get something to eat. Happy that it's not a work night.

Life is... life. It is sufficient to say that most sectors of my life are going quite well, but the few that are going less smoothly put a significant damper on the whole experience.

My workout yesterday went well. I went to a bit of Roast at Senior House that evening, which was fun. Climbing this morning was also good.

( Climbing Notes )

This afternoon, there was May Fair in Harvard Square, which was fun, although I was super-tired (took some pictures, so I'll upload those later). Then I went home and slept. Now my stomach is bothering me. I hope I'm not coming down with something...

Restaurant food is so good, but it's far too easy to eat more than I really want to. I was doing a good job of avoiding that at the beginning of the week, but less so yesterday and today.

Exercise has been going decently well. The new routine has me doing six exercises, three sets each, cycling between light (10-12 reps), medium (6-8 reps), and heavy (1-4 reps) days each week and increasing the weight when I max out the reps. The current set is back squat (175/185/210), DB chest press (90/110/120 lbs.), one-arm DB row (55/60/75), EZ curl (55/65/85), skull crushers (50/70/80), military press (60/80/90). (Looking back to the end of October, I was doing some of the same exercises, my light row was 25 and my light chest press was 60. I've been doing cardio on some of my off days and I'm also making some progress on running speed and endurance... really slowly.) My trainer is going to have me change the mix of exercises soon, though.

That cold sore finally stopped hurting, too.

This sudden onset cold seems to have made just as rapid a departure, a pleasant surprise.

Today, I went climbing at MetroRock with [NAME REDACTED] today, a former [CLASSIFIED] whom I met at the Diesel meetup. Good fun, learned the basic safety procedures and scaled and descended a 5.6 (easy; YDS, I think?) wall. Am now so very sore.

After being injured, sick, and out-of-town, I got back to my usual Saturday appointment with the trainer this week, and prepared to start on a new phase of strength training.

In the afternoon, I took my diploma to the framery to get it framed, so I can hang it on the wall and keep it in good condition.

In the evening, I went out to Wellesley to have dinner with Kate, which went well, was very pleasant. Our last attempt to meet was a disaster because I'd mistyped my phone number (could have been a mere annoyance, but instead was an explosion of hurt feelings all around), so I'm glad that we were able to repair things after getting so dramatically off on the wrong foot.

The rest of the night has been quiet so far. I'm looking forward to a nice night's sleep.

This weekend was quite good. On Saturday I got out to Wellesley (for Yuki Matsuri, Japanese Club's winter event) and ended up taking a detour to Olin for a party, so saw a lot of friends I haven't seen in a while. I was also glad to see that the new Man Hall continues the Olin tradition of quality parties.

Saturday I went to All Star with Patti for lunch, then in the evening went to Sunset with Nikkie and DJ.

Today I might be meeting someone for tea who I met on OKCupid, but we'll see. She was going to call about timing, but I haven't heard from her yet.

My arm has been fine, too, but I'll have to see how that goes after my next real workout.