Up With | - Part 7

Kettlebell Inspiration

Posted by Ralph at 01:52 Up With

Jun 282013

Image via Wikipedia

Our leader Justin here at Cantankerous Old Coots keeps us hacks jumping. I toe the line pretty well remembering all the old tricks I learned at work for keeping the boss happy. Bob is another matter altogether. Bob is a ‘my way or the highway’ kind of guy and sometimes it’s all Justin can do to keep Bob focused and on target- or even present. I rail about Justin from time to time but so far, he’s been the one keeping the wheels on the bus here at COC, slave driver though he may me.

What with being a stay at home Dad, web entrepreneur and running his own blog, you can imagine that Justin’s life is full of challenges. Mere mortals like me constantly ask; How does he cope? How does he maintain his balance and joi de vivre amidst this busy cacophony? I confess that I don’t have a clue. It would be beyond my meager abilities which are strained daily just pulling my weight here at Coots.

Still from time to time even Justin needs to fill his tank and refresh his spirit. He retreats to a quiet place and lets his spirit flow. He plays his kettlebells.

Justin will never acknowledge his talent. He disclaims any praise or attention and refuses to perform publicly. But his skill is legendary. No one has yet captured Justin performing either on video or audio. He keeps his light under a bushel, so to speak. Still, careful research has uncovered kettlebell masters who inspire and encourage Justin to grow his talent. You can get a small idea about the power of Justin’s talent from these videos . These powerful performances will give you an idea of what a kettlebell master like Justin can do.

Sometimes whtn Justin gets into his groove, the spirit takes him places where mere mortals only dream of going. Listen to those mellow sounds and then tell Justin that you want him to share his music with the rest of us. Mellow out with this second video and then send him a message here at Coots or at Justin’s Brainpan. Tell him you want to know the magic of kettlebell music. Talent like Justin’s deserves sharing.

Ralph

Ralph is the inspiration for Cantankerous Old Coots and is our Grand Duke of Cantankerousness

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Up with Tea!

Posted by Ralph at 10:57 Up With

Mar 252013

I’ve been drinking more tea lately. It’s not that I like tea so much. It is for my health. I read somewhere that three cups of tea a day would help with the arthritis pain in my knees which is beginning to annoy me. I’ve been in denial about the arthritis for a few years now figuring that if I ignored it long enough it would go away. Well I formed a new plan. Last month I decided that it was time to mention it to my doctor. He told me that yes I did have arthritis and to tell him if I needed something to handle the pain. So much for modern medicine.

I’ve been cynical about medicine since my brothers died back when I was in high school. Medicine couldn’t keep them from dying then and I don’t think it has made much progress since. Notice that my doctor didn’t tell me he could do anything about the arthritis. He only offered me relief from the pain. So much for doctors.

It’s all up to me!

I did some research about arthritis and learned that tea is supposed to help reduce inflammation. I’d taken up green tea a few years back as a health thing but the stuff tastes like dishwater and I gradually stopped. At the timeI understood that green tea was the best tea to drink but my new research said that there wasn’t any difference between the benefits of green tea and black tea so now I’m drinking black. It’s got more flavor.

A tin of loose Earl Grey tea (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I think one of the problems I have with tea is watching too many old British movies. Tea always suggests overdressed people in over decorated rooms sipping tea from delicate bone china cups. Tea is effete snobbery that I can’t relate to while coffee is how I live- a legacy from my father’s Swedish heritage. For me, the only American way to drink tea is iced.

Still I am finding that black tea has enough taste to at least partially satisfy my craving for something hot and stimulating while I work. I have decided to get better acquainted with the different types. I just worked through a box of Oolong. The description on the box said it was perfumed and delicate which is how they try to sell you on insipid green tea so I was skeptical. It was perfumed all right but still tasty enough to know I wasn’t drinking plain hot water.

Today I opened a new box- this one is Earl Gray- or is it Grey? This is much more like the Lipton’s I grew up with. It has more flavor but unlike Liptons I can smell some perfume as I hold the cup under my nose. I took a break from writing to brew a fresh cup and discovered that Earl Grey tea is enhanced with oil of bergamot (a kind of orange). I guess that makes it a predecessor to Constant Comment.

How long can I keep this up?

I don’t know how long I can continue this tea trip. It’s not as bad as I expected but I just don’t get the satisfaction from a cup of tea that I do from coffee. Right now it’s a mind trip to improve my health and improve my understanding of tea. Sipping my second cup, I can imagine the orange scent. At this point I can’t be sure if I really smell it or just imagine it. It’s got flavor but it doesn’t compare to the rich café dobles that I remember fondly from my days in Buenos Aires.

What will make or break my new commitment to tea is if I believe that it helps with the arthritis. I know that I will not eliminate it. My goal is to mitigate it’s destruction to my knee joints and keep the pain levels manageable. So far I’m managing to feel positive about the effort. The pain seems less. The tea is more tasty than I expected. Still, it’s coffee that stirs my soul and rouses me to action. Time will tell.

Ralph

Ralph is the inspiration for Cantankerous Old Coots and is our Grand Duke of Cantankerousness

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Up with Old Age

Posted by Ralph at 11:30 Up With

Jan 312013

You just can’t avoid it.

One of our principles here at Cantankerous Old Coots is not to hold back. We believe in straight talk, calling a spade a spade and

The Old Coot (Photo credit: goingslo)

facing the music. We understand that those are the behaviors of a man of integrity and we firmly support the notion that in the English language, at least, a man of integrity is generic, encompassing both major sexes and even a few of the minor ones. Cantankerous Old Coots aspire to be men of integrity but we also modestly confess that telling it like it is is also a direct product of the aging process.

What else can you do when all those bodily functions and physical abilities desert you? You rant. And when ranting just doesn’t satisfy you start picking the world around you to pieces. You notice it’s failures and you tell is like it is. You can’t change reality or bring back your youthful energy, physical prowess and libido but it serves notice that you have had it up to here with old age and you aren’t going to take it any more. You channel Howard Beal. Of course, it doesn’t fix anything but, at least, it distracts you for the moment.

Which came first? The cantankerous or the coot.

One of the explanations for the existence of cantankerous old coots is the aging process. Getting old makes you just naturally turn cantankerous and, of course, when you turn cantankerous what is more natural than being called a coot. Most people will accept that as a straightforward explanation. Most people are fools. This is a very superficial perspective on aging , the kind that you develop when you are a youngster and don’t know any better. When you are young and everything works like it is supposed to, you just don’t know what you don’t know. Youngsters imagine that they understand life when, in fact, they are clueless.

Aging is one of those facts of life that we learn early on and think we understand. We observe old people but can’t fathom that life will take us all there- if we are lucky. The young mind sees old people and can’t truly believe that they were once young. They also have no way to understand their future; what it is like to be old. They believe it is all cosmetic, wrinkles and gray hair with the body still willing..

The young can’t handle it!

Youngsters can’t get their heads around the physical reality of aging. They don’t believe that it will actually happen to them. The young mind refuses to acknowledge it’s own aging . The young mind denies the physical deterioration of his body but each year that denial becomes harder to justify.

At some point the reality hits. Denial become impossible and the true test of life begins.

You begin to ask the important questions. What good are you? What justification can you find in struggling on? Who really cares? This is a painful and humiliating process: accepting old age after decades of denial. Some deal with it better than others. Many wilt with this acceptance and meekly surrender to decrepitude and dependence. Others just give up and expire. A few refuse to go quietly into the dark night of senility. They get mad. They fight back. They protest and complain. They get noticed. Sometimes they even matter. Those are the Cantankerous Old Coots.

It’s all futile.

Of course in the end, it makes absolutely no difference. Life on earth is finite. At some point the perceived advantages of continuing to exist start to lose out to the difficulties. Cantankerous Old Coots might hold on longer just for the sheer, good-matured fun of messing with Mother Nature but that is an individual decision. Cantankerous Old Coots aren’t in it to win. Nobody wins. For a Cantankerous Old Coot it is the battle. Did you give it all you had? And did anybody notice?

Are you a Cantankerous Old Coot, a foolish youngster or in denial? Going down easy or hard?

Ralph

Ralph is the inspiration for Cantankerous Old Coots and is our Grand Duke of Cantankerousness

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Up with Wolves

Posted by Ralph at 06:02 Up With

Dec 262012

Image by Douglas Brown via Flickr

Just a minute!

Justin keeps us level headed around the old Cantankerous Old Coots campfire. Sometimes when the old cantankerous spirit starts moving me it just carries me away like those rampaging mountain streams up the hill from the old homestead. Sometimes I just let the spirit take me on a wild detour. I go with the flow, get my mojo working and ride the rapids into a dead end. (That was every cliché I could remember but if I missed any, please leave a comment because in my book, you can never have enough cliches.) So, as Justin reminds me, I got carried away about sheep lately. It’s time to move on.

Sheep are a fact of life.

But that doesn’t mean you let them take charge. Like so many other uncontrollables today, sheep are both a problem and an opportunity. While sheep may not contribute to the dialogue here at Cantankerous Old Coots or anyplace else for that matter, if we intend for COC to dominate the blogosphere, we can’t do it without the support of sheep. There are just too many of them.

It’s a known fact that the population today is 95% sheep- probably more. You can’t have a successful blog if you bash 95% of your potential audience. But I can be dense. I was missing that point, being all engaged with my sheep fixation. Justin, however, was on top of the situation. He was watching our course while I scuttled the ship. Fortified from his early morning kettle bell meditation and smelling of baby powder, he stepped in to put things right .

Justin sounds a wake up call.

“Get your mind back on track.” He signaled subtly. “Sheep are the bread and butter here at COC, stop beating them up and focus on wolves.”

I hate to admit Justin’s brilliance because there is always payback. He runs a tight ship. I may have to eat crow in the staff meetings and do menial tasks for the next month but it’s better than chasing sheep around the pasture. The truth is obvious. There is no future in sheep. They are either maddening or invisible. Neither is any fun even when you get to pick which you prefer. Justin counsels to pick invisible and I am forced to agree. (We’d ask Bob but he’s still looking for clean underwear.) So the consensus here at COC is that from now on sheep will be invisible. We know they are out there. We know that they constitute at least 95% of our potential audience. We know that if they do read COC, they won’t comment or fill out our surveys. We also know that even the most stubborn sheep will read COC from time to time and we are OK with that. We just aren’t going to tailor our communications to sheep.

The future is wolves.

Wolves are the new media darlings whether in Yellowstone Park or in the blogosphere. Wolves are restoring the ecosystems wherever they are re-introduced. I don’t doubt that a few wolves introduced into the right environment can solve all the world’s problems. Global warming- add wolves and make it better. Not enough jobs. Introduce wolf packs into the workplace to thin down the overpopulation. So if wolves are the future, COC is going to the wolves too. Are you coming along with us? We are safer in a crowd.

Ralph

Ralph is the inspiration for Cantankerous Old Coots and is our Grand Duke of Cantankerousness

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Up with SciFi Masters

Posted by Ralph at 04:23 Up With

Oct 082012

People who think they know everything

are a great annoyance to those of us who do.

– Isaac Asimov

Dr. Isaac Asimov, head-and-shoulders portrait, facing slightly right, 1965 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Looking for inspiration this morning, I stumbled upon this quote form one of my favorite authors when I was young. I loved Science Fiction in high school in spite, or maybe because ,of it’s reputation as low-brow and trivial. I was unimpressed with the criticism. I read everything I could find by Heinlein, Bradbury and of course, Isaac Asimov. They created a future brighter and more interesting than the boring present I faced back in those days. I loved the twists, the unimaginable possibilities and fell in love with the future. Back before the dumbed down special effects burdened future of Starwars, those early SciFi masters created a future that excited and engaged my mind. Long before the force engaged the universe, learning about psycho-history could change the world- or at least help you deal with it.

College put the damper on my SciFi passion. Scientific reality blinded me to the truths contained in Bradbury’s Martian stories and even the clever Asimov was no Jane Austin when it came to developing character. I began to accept the conventional wisdom that SciFi was a second rate branch of literature. The cocksure heroes of SciFi were not blessed with wisdom, fortitude and plucky determination, they were pigheaded, dumb and lucky.

The death of Ray Bradbury made me remember how important these writers were in my young life and how much I may have lost by leaving them behind. And the quote above from Isaac Asimov helped me see why my life got derailed. In high school I was open to ideas with no real authority figures to steer me. I had some great teachers in high school but outside of their classroom expertise, I didn’t give them any more credence than I did my parents. The were by and large nice people but they didn’t have what I wanted and so their advice and approval was not a requirement.

A photograph of science fiction author Ray Bradbury that I took in August, 1975 and which he later autographed to me. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Asimov would have ignored them, Bradbury would have seen through them and Heinlein would have kicked their asses. I let them control my thinking and limit my life. Looking back, it is clear to me that I had a pretty good handle on life when I first arrived at college and that without the college experience I might have gotten control of my life far earlier. I didn’t know everything then and I don’t know everything now but what I do know is that people who thought they knew it all certainly did me no favors back then. I now understand that they didn’t know it all. I wasn’t smart enough to be annoyed at the time. I didn’t know enough but I should have.

Bottom line, people who think they know everything are not just annoying to those who do know everything. They can do great damage even to those who don’t. This poses a great difficulty when you are trying to decide whether to follow advice from others. My advice based upon years of experience is this. The only people in my life who have been willing and eager to tell me what to do are the people who think they know everything. The ones who actually do know everything will let you figure it out for yourself.

Midshipman Heinlein, from the 1929 U.S. Naval Academy yearbook (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Ralph

Ralph is the inspiration for Cantankerous Old Coots and is our Grand Duke of Cantankerousness

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