Distractions

One of the only ways for me to get through the training week is to have distractions.  Don’t get me wrong, when I’m rowing I’m focusing solely on rowing, but when I’m not rowing I try to keep myself sane with other occupations. 

Reading always works.  I never read much as a kid.  It’s funny, I was just talking to my Dad about this yesterday.  Somehow, the SAT came up and we were reminiscing on when I took it at least 7 times in high school to improve my scores enough so I could get into Navy.  I told him one of the reasons I believe I had trouble on the verbal SAT was because I didn’t read as a kid.  My parent’s tried, but Tommy, Chris, Pat and I were always trying to kill each other in the woods or on the soccer field.  I’d do it all over again.  Anyway, when I started going on deployments in the Navy I began to read pretty regularly.  I remember how stoked I was when I finished my first deployment and read 4 books over 6 months!  That was a big deal for me.  A man, or at least this man can only watch or play so much xbox.  Now-a-days I find myself reading a bunch of different stuff.  I’m currently reading Ender’s Shadow.  It follows the life of Bean, who is one of Ender’s Lieutenants when killing all of the galactic buggers.  I know, it sounds dorky and kind of is, but they are good reads.  I’ve also read some historyv(1776 from David McCullough is a good one) and biographies.  One of my favorite books is Longitude.  It’s about the invention of the chronometer and the idea of using it to gage what your longitude was during the age of sail.  Yes, being navigator on FORD was my favorite job ever.  I’m a dork.

NETFLIX!  Oh man, how many hours have I wasted away watching netflix.  I watch many many different things:  Documentaries about nutrition, history, the economy.  Sons of Anarchy, Dexter, Nip/Tuck, Breaking Bad and many many more.  My roommates and I don’t have a TV so Netflix and live sport games streaming are my outlets.

Vege Lasagna

Cooking/Eating.  I don’t want to brag, but I’ve managed to become quite the little chef.  Anthony, one of my roommates gave me this killer vegetable lasagna recipe that I can make from memory.  The other night at C’s for the B’s (cookies for the boys, a guy only team function where we make cookies and try to carb load.  Sugar is a carb too J) I made whole wheat chocolate chip cookies.  They were pretty good, but not amazing.  I personally thought there was too much butter, oh well.   My new inspiration has been the bean.  I’ve managed to make a few healthy bean salads over the past 2 weeks.  The one area where I have trouble is portions.  Each bean salad last about 5 days, haha.  No matter how good something is, you will always probably not enjoy it anymore on the fifth day.  When I don’t feel like cooking or just run out of food I usually make the trek to a local OKC eatery.  They include, but are not limited to Irma’s Burger Shack, The Classen Grill, Kaiser’s, Leo’s BBQ and Cool Greens.     

Blogging.  As we all know, I don’t have too many blog post and this is a newer thing for me, but it does help keep my mind off of rowing and allow me to practice a bit of writing and critical thinking.  It’s a great way to keep family and friends informed and I enjoy it. 

Hopefully you enjoyed this one and thanks for helping me keep my mind off of practicing. 

Have a good one.

- Jimmy