The new home of "The Frank Report."

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  I've changed my workout to do four sets of every exercise instead of three. It should dramatically increase my muscle growth. It's also exhausting, I'm basically trying to fit two days worth of exercises into one day. The only thing that makes it worthwhile is scoping myself out in the locker room mirror post workout (when nobody's looking of course.) I'll be a very happy camper once my post-exercise "pump" becomes a permanent rather than temporary condition.

Took my third horseback riding exercise today. It was my first day in "the big ring" and also the first day that I've used the reins. My instructor, and all the young girls at the barn, were absolutely gobsmacked because I was able to get my horse to trot a complete loop around the track. It may not sound like much, but it's something that eludes most newbies well into their second or third month. You'd think that all it would take is just to tell the horse to "giddy-up" and tap his sides and the whole thing happens like magic. It's more like juggling fish while riding a unicycle. The lesson is only an hour but it takes an intensely draining amount of concentration.

All and all I'm pretty pumped both from the workout results and my amazing progress with the horse. I'm going to reward myself with an early bedtime. <-- That's showing my age!

posted at 6:48 PM

  As I keep telling people, my life, through no obvious fault, attracts a certain level of weirdness that bypasses ordinary folk. Was walking down the street today with my co-worker, who happens to be black, on our way to lunch. Occasionally we're mistaken for an interracial couple. Not that anyone ever says anything, but it's hard to miss the curious stares and the mental calculus performed as people try to figure out "are they or aren't they?"

Today, one psycho woman took it to a whole new level. From 25 yards away she began screaming the most vile epithets I've ever heard - and this wasn't a homeless or mentally ill person - this was a well-dressed middle American.

I need not point out that this type of thing isn't commonplace in DC. When it happens it usually involves, alcohol, a police presence, members of the underclass or all of the above. I approached this woman, to try and figure out what her problem was and the screaming continued.

If I had been on steroids, I honestly believe I would have physically attacked her.

Instead I settled on cursing her out - equally vile and equally loud. That seemed to send her packing. My co-worker either didn't hear the full context of the comments or pretended not to notice. The whole thing left her completely unfazed. Amazing.

Tonight is what I like to call "big money day" at the gym: chest and arms. Tonight is snow shovelling. Tomorrow is horseback riding. More to come.

posted at 1:53 PM

  Hola, all. After a lengthy one-month hiatus from blogging (many thanks to those of you who noticed) I am, as they say, back in the saddle again. (More on that later.) The two-week birthday celebration rolled-over into the holidays, the holidays into the flu's and blues, the flu's and blues into catching up from all of the former. Now, several pounds heavier, things are back to "normal."

I have been going to the gym during this whole period, believe it or not; lifting but not doing cardio. That's probably what kept my weight gain down to a manageable 7 pounds over the holiday's, which I've since whittled down to 2. The weather has been unseasonably cold (DC speak for "a real winter.") and that has kept me (by choice) out of my 6 am outdoor workout routines. (Another reason for the conspicuous weight gain.) I hope to go back to the regular full-schedule when the weather changes in February but as the saying goes: "if wishes were fishes then beggars would dine."

In other news, I've taken up horseback riding (#13 on the 2001 New Years Resolution list). I've only been to 2 lessons, the third is this weekend. So far all has gone well. It is (no surprise) much, much colder out in the Virginia horse farm country than it is near DC. The other shock has been the amount of mud.

I've never seen so much mud! Endless plains of 8" deep, frigid, boot-sucking muck. And cowboy boots, as I quickly learned are designed more for a) looking pretty b) cowboy drag c) dancing and d) dealing with horses in the dry, warm Texas desert. Cowboy boots are not good for Virginia winters, especially when buried below the ankle in cold wet mud.

The good news is that I survived my first serious risk of being thrown from a horse. I was sitting in the saddle doing "Zen riding" exercises which involves sitting with my eyes closed and my arms straight out to the side. Another instructor came over to watch and sat on a fence rail which, unbeknownst to us, was rotten. It snapped with a loud crack, which immediately spooked the horse (named "Cash", BTW), and caused him to jump up and attempt to bolt. Now for you non-riders out there, what normally happens is that when the rider panics, he/she tenses up, which causes the horse to panic as well. As a complete newbie sitting there with my eyes closed and nothing to hold on to, I should have panicked. Somehow (maybe it was my amazing Zen powers of relaxation) I remained calm and the instructor and I were able to bring Cash to a halt. This has earned me extra "points" around the barn as a newbie and hints that I may have a heretofore unexplored talent for horse riding. Time will tell.

Other than that, not much is new, or rather, not much that I want to preserve in writing for a journal that is open to the entire public. I do have a new e-mail address but can still be reached at my work address. Either will do. If you need the non-work one, just ask. I'm not linking it to this page for fear that some automated web crawler will scoop it up and shove it into ten thousand pr0n spam mailers. One good thing about the Federal government: their web filters are very good about screening out spam.

Posting will pick up as I continue to get back up to full speed. Exercise will continue to pick up as well. I did some post-holiday clothes shopping only to discover that if I want to upgrade my wardrobe, I've got to downgrade my waistline further. In the meantime, my "chore of the evening" is cleaning out the inside of my car. Between the mud, horse cr*p and gym gear, the inside is starting to smell a bit ripe. The dogs, however, consider it a Disneyland of olfactory delights.

posted at 11:37 AM