Wall Drug "bit" from DJP's 2nd romantic comedy novel!

This is an excerpt from my second novel (unpublished) Somewhere Between Love & Confusion.  The main characters of the story, Max and Kate, are newlyweds on a cross-country journey after Max loses his high-paying dot.com job.  Max is lost and in desperate search for self.  Kate is just in a desperate search for Max.  I thought it was funny book.  Publishers thought that women readers don't care about the guys point of view.  So the book has never been read by anybody other than my wife, mother and a slew of people who rejected it.  However, I'm publishing this excerpt because a Twitter post yesterday reminded me about Wall Drug in South Dakota and part of this chapter takes place in that store.  Hope you enjoy!      

Excerpt from Somewhere Between Love & Confusion

By: Daniel James Palmer

            “What’s got you so chipper?” I asked.

            “It’s shopping day!”  Kate beamed.  “We’re going to Wall Drug.”

            I panicked at the thought. 

“What about our hike?” I pleaded.

            “We had a deal remember?” Kate said.  “We’d go to Wall Drug, stock up on some provisions for camping, and then we’ll head over to the Badlands right after.  Besides, I need my South Dakota floaty pen.  Maybe we can get our joke at Wall Drug as well.”

            We quickly packed up our room, and, as had become our routine, we struggled to fit everything into our car.

            “We’re going to have to eat whatever provisions we buy in order to fit them in here,” I mused.  Kate didn’t find me amusing. 

            Our over abundance of stuff had become an unyielding, powerful obsession for Kate ever since Ohio.  Each morning when we went to pack the car, she was faced with the unpleasant reminder of our most egregious planning error.  That said, when we pulled into the town center of Wall, South Dakota, the ever-observant Kate spied a small wooden sign for the Wall Post Office, she banged a hard left into an open space right out in front.

            “Kate what are we doing here?” I asked.

            “Shipping,” she said with a grin.

            She climbed out of the car and opened the back.  Kate started pulling out every bag we brought.  She laid them out in neat rows on the street by the open hatchback.  She unzipped each bag and, to my horror, she started to pull out all of our clothes, arranging them into little piles.

            “Kate, what are you doing now?”

            “You can’t decide what to keep and what to ship back if you don’t know what you have,” she said.

            “Yeah?”

            “So let’s figure out what you want to keep and what you want to ship home.  I’ll make a pile of your stuff and a pile of my stuff.  Then we’ll know how to split everything up.”

            Just as she said that, an elderly couple strolled passed and looked at our belongings strewn about the road. They looked at me, next at Kate, and then back at all our stuff divided into neat little piles on the street and sidewalk.  They gave me an ominously disapproving stare.

            “They’re so young,” I overheard the woman say to her husband.

            “Stick it out kids,” the man said. “It’s worth it in the end.”

            “What is?” I asked him.

            “Marriage,” he replied as his wife shooed him along with a forcible nudge.           

“Katie, they think we’re getting a divorce!”  I said with alarm.  “It’s not what you think, sir!” I shouted back to them.  They continued walking away, never once looking back.  “We’re not getting a divorce, we’re just lousy packers!” I yelled again.

Other people out on the town that morning stared as well, and one guy actually stepped over my socks and underwear on his way into the post office.

            “Katie, people think we’re splitting up, this is really embarrassing,” I said. 

            “Since when do you care what other people think?”  Kate said mockingly.  She pulled the Night Bag out of the back seat and dumped its contents onto the street, tapping me with a playful punch in the arm.  She was like a woman freed from bondage.  Her newfound lightness gave her a giddy sense of relief that was downright playful.

            “Are you selling that?” asked a young man in a Grateful Dead t-shirt, pointing to my video camera.

            “This isn’t a yard sale!” I snapped.  I picked up my camera and threw it into the back of the car.  By the time we finished sorting and sifting through all our stuff, we had downsized four sweaters, two extra pairs pajamas, three pairs of pants, all our books, (except for Road Trip USA), as well as some “just in case” rain gear.  Everything fit neatly into two boxes which I carried into the post office.  The woman working behind the counter carefully weighed the contents of my packages and charged me $23.64 for the shipping.  Kate had called New York and made arrangements for a neighbor to receive our packages.

            “I’m sorry,” said postal worker as she rang up the charges.

            “For what?”  I asked.

            “I mean about you and your wife, splitting up and all.”

            I let out a deep sigh and thanked her for her well wishes.  I felt people’s stares as I collected my change and heard them murmuring softly amongst themselves as I left.   When I got outside I grabbed Kate and kissed her passionately on the street.  She was taken aback at first, but quickly locked her lips against mine and fell securely into my embrace. 

            “Let’s see what they have to say about that,” I said with pride.

            Kate laughed and we walked off together to Wall Drug for some shopping.  It was almost noon.  For a minute I had completely forgotten about my hike. 

            With all the signs and advertisements that dotted the highway along I-90, each touting the marvels of Wall Drug, I expected the shopping experience to be as awe inspiring as the Taj Mahal.  To my dismay, Wall Drug turned out to be (surprise, surprise), a giant tourist trap.  I was a helpless fly caught in its paper.  Wall Drug was an endless mall of stores all selling the same sort of stuff: t-shirts, stickers, souvenir pennies, lighters, refrigerator magnets of different states, and yes, probably a thousand floaty pens.  There were other more kitschy attractions there as well.  My favorite was a somewhat realistic looking and terrifyingly noisy Tyrannosaurus Rex, activated with the simple deposit of a few quarters.  I was amazed at the overall hustle and bustle of the shopping complex, but it took only a minute or so for me to realize that the average age of a Wall Drug shopper on a Monday afternoon was deceased.

            “Kate, we are the youngest people here by about a hundred years,” I said.  I could not disguise my exasperation as Kate tried on cowboy hats.

            “Just relax,” she said. “Do you like this one?”

            “I’m relaxed,” I replied defensively.  “I’m just wondering when we’re going to do something that’s physically challenging enough so I don’t have to feel like I’m hanging out at a casting call for Cocoon III.”

            “Ok, let’s just grab some lunch then we’ll go over to the market, stock up on supplies and then we’ll go to the Badlands for the hike.  Besides, I’ve already bought my floaty pen.”

            She held her new pen up and proudly inverted it so I could watch a beefy bison float its way across a plastic prairie.  I had a dreadful premonition that it was going to be the only wild animal I would see this entire trip. 

I picked up a pamphlet detailing the history of Wall Drug as we wandered into the cafeteria area for lunch.  Kate ordered a veggie burger and I got a chicken sandwich, which I drowned in Miracle Whip.  For me, Miracle Whip was a long lost condiment from my youth.  Perhaps I got a little over enthusiastic.  Kate ate peacefully, still basking in the glow of an apparent victory over our on-going luggage dilemma, while I read the history of the Wall Drug Store. 

            According to the pamphlet, Ted and Dorothy Hustead bought the only drug store in Wall, South Dakota in 1931.  He started out with just $3,000 from his father’s savings and the idea of running his own business. Ted, a recent graduate from Pharmacy School, went off in search of a pharmacy to buy, in the hopes that he could start a sustainable family business.  A deeply religious man, Ted wanted his store to be in a small town and near a church, so he and his family could attend Mass everyday.  They bought the Wall Drug store, a dump of a store in a tiny little town.  Their families were far from supportive of the decision.

            “It’s in the middle of nowhere,” they warned.

            Ted and Dorothy were convinced that Wall Drug held the key to their future and they gritted it out, saving every penny they could, supporting each other with love and words of encouragement along the way, and both agreed that the risk of a life in poverty was worth taking if it meant pursuing their dream.  Business was terrible. The depression had wiped most farmers clean of their savings.  They lived in the back of the store—Ted, Dorothy and their little son Billy, all of them crammed into a tiny one room apartment without much facility for cooking.

            The years passed and business had not improved.  Dorothy remained optimistic about the future, noting that Mount Rushmore would be opening soon, sure to bring with it a flood of tourists to the area. 

She was right, in a way.  Traffic had picked up, but nobody was stopping at Wall.  Then one evening Dorothy set off for bed only to return to the store a few hours later.  She had had a restless sleep on account of all the cars passing outside her window driving along route 16A.  It was then Dorothy got a brilliant idea and excitedly padded downstairs to tell Ted.  It was the traffic that had inspired her.  She thought about all the people driving by and how nobody was stopping at Wall.  She wondered what it would take to “lure” them to Wall Drug.  To lure a traveler, you needed something that a hot and tired traveler would want—ice water.  To make the offer even more tempting, you could tease them with billboard signs spaced out along the highway, building their anticipation.  As the jalopies drove past, dust filled and overheated, the motorists would read:  "Get a soda . . . Get a root beer . . . turn next corner . . . Just as near . . . To Highway 16 & 14. . . Free Ice Water. . . Wall Drug."   

Since Kate and I were here on account of those signs, (or newer versions of them), it was safe to assume that Dorothy’s idea worked splendidly.  The fact that Wall Drug was the size of a New York City block was another giveaway that her marketing plan turned out to be a phenomenal success.  I read the entire pamphlet to Kate who seemed unimpressed.             

“I wish we could come up with an idea like Ted and Dorothy,” I said, using their names as if they were long time friends of ours.  “He had only $3,000 dollars and look at what they did.  I had millions in a dotcom and we went totally bust.”

“Well, maybe somebody should have thought about using road signs to get people to come to your Web site,” Kate said with a smile.
            “Kate, that isn’t funny.  I mean it.  Let’s brainstorm ideas for businesses we can buy or start from scratch and turn into a huge, mega-successful operation like this one. Ready?”

“Brainstorm when? Now?  No! I want to eat my veggie burger in peace if you don’t mind?”

“Ok, after?”

“How about we just go hiking?  My goodness, you can’t even read a pamphlet without sending yourself into a tizzy.”

“I’m just saying we could be like Dorothy and Ted.”

“How about for today, just for one day, we’ll be like Max and Kate going on a hike, ok?”

I relented, took a big bite of my battered chicken sandwich bathed in Miracle Whip and started silently brainstorming ideas for businesses we could buy.  By the time we finished eating, I had only one idea on my list—a drug store.

Mariano Rivera : Writing as Persistence : Published

I wrote the title of this blog post in the form of a Miller Analogy Test question because I think Rivera's story is an analogy for success, both in writing and in life.  If you've never heard of the Miller Analogy Test before (MAT), it's a "high-level mental ability test requiring the solution of problems stated as analogies."  Or, as I like to describe it, "the reason I was able to attend graduate school because they accepted the MAT in place of the GRE."   With the baseball season coming to close, I felt it appropriate to blog about the Mariano Rivera article I recently read in Sports Illustrated (of course I read this after I had finished re-reading some Dostoyevsky, naturally).

The article by Tom Verducci paints a vivid portrait of a workhorse baseball player, whose hall of fame career may be most responsible for the Yankee's modern day dynasty.  What separates Rivera from other "pitchers" (because let's face it, there is a difference between a "pitcher" and a "thrower") is that he possesses a single weapon--one pitch that dominates almost every hitter he faces.  In a mind game such as baseball, one would think knowing what pitch a pitcher was going to throw would be a huge advantage for the hitter.  That's not the case with Rivera.  As Mike Sweeny of the Kansas City Royals explains, "you know what's coming, but you know what's coming in horror movies too."


I like to read about successful people, regardless of industry or relevance to my own life, just to see what nuggets I can pull from their story and apply to my own.  Rivera's approach to life and the game are rich with lessons that resonated with me--as a story teller, husband and father.  Perhaps some of these lessons will connect with you as well.


Lesson One:  Go with Your Gift.
Rivera was throwing during practice and his catcher, pal Ramero Mendoza, was getting angry.  The ball kept dipping and dropping five feet from Mendoza's glove.  He thought Rivera was doing it intentionally.  That wasn't the case.  It was that at that throwing practice when something about Rivera's delivery suddenly changed.   Rivera called it a "gift from God".  Hitters would come to call it a nightmare.  Balls don't drop five feet from the plate like Rivera's pitch was suddenly doing.  When that happens, it makes it almost impossible for a hitter to make solid contact with his bat.  Rivera realized he had a very special gift and he made the most of it.


As a writer, I have certain talents that are uniquely my own.  It would serve me no good to try to imitate the talents and styles of others I admire.  I have to trust my skills and believe in myself.   I think it's easy to judge your insides to other people's outsides.  I doubt however, that this is a good strategy for learning how to first find, then focus on using your gifts.  Rivera intimately knows the gift he possesses.  And he uses that gift, game after game, that one single gift of one exceptional pitch to not only execute, but to dominate.

Lesson Two:  Embrace the Grind
The baseball season is REALLY long.  160+ games starting April ending, if you're lucky, in October (oh, but spring training begins in February).  Writing a novel is a long process as well.  Starting with a blank page, and ending when you have no more hair to pull out.  Rivera plays the regular season to get to the post season.  For an author that's the equivalent of writing your novel (the regular season) and the ONE month after your book is published, when the work is considered "hot" (post season).  It seems like a lot of upfront work for a short lived payoff, but that's not true if you're playing to get to the post season.  That's the game of baseball and it seems that's the game of writing as well.  Do the work, embrace the work day after day, all the while, keep your eye on the post season prize and hope your book sells to your measure of success, be it bestseller, or three hundred copies of an e-book.


Lesson Three: R-E-S-P-E-C-T
Rivera respects everybody.  The rookie hitter.  Pitchers from rival teams.  Guys in their prime and the ones on the decline.  He'll joke and rib and poke fun at anybody, but he'll do it in a way that says--"I respect you, but that doesn't mean I won't try to get in your head and beat you."  He also respects his body (no clubbing, no crazy late nights) and his routine as well.  Shows up at the same time, leaves when it's over.  He does the same warm up, and cools down the same old way.  He doesn't tire of it either.  That's because he respects the game most of all.  No--he LOVES the game.  Rivera will tell (as in share the secret) anybody who asks how he throws his killer pitch.  Why would give away trade secrets in a game as secretive as baseball?  Because he respects their desire to learn and he's not afraid of competition.  He embraces it, knowing that better competition it will only advance the art of the game.


I think much can be gained by respecting everybody in the writing community.  Those who have a long list of bestsellers to their credit, and those hoping to be published one day soon.  It's fine your competitive spirit for sure, but folks will be quick to respect you if they believe you respect them in return.  Clint Eastwood once famously said, 

"Respect your efforts, respect yourself. Self respect leads to self discipline. When you have both firmly under your belt, that's real power."  This is so very true.

Lesson Four:  Focus, not Confidence

It's easy as a writer to get caught up in the roller coaster of emotions that come with our chosen passion.  We're emotional creatures after all and I spend my day trying to convey different emotions with words.  But that can happen on the page; it doesn't need to bleed into my real life.  So you get rejected--fine, move on.  You get a publishing contract--great, time to write.  Your sales are less than expected--fine, move on.  Not say that you shouldn't celebrate your victories along the way.  But the disciple to write and finish that book comes not from having a schedule tacked to your wall, but from a commitment you make to yourself to go the distance no matter what highs and lows you encounter along the way.

For me this is the most important lesson of all.  My rejection pile from agents and publishers is a stack of papers, whereas my acceptance pile is but a single sheet.  In this business, it only takes one to say "yes".  Perhaps in publishing, it's not the best writers who land that coveted book contract, but the most focused and persistent ones who do.  

What are your thoughts on Mariano Rivera's story?  Does it connect with you as it did to me?  If you like my sharing what I learn as I read about the habits of highly successful folk leave me a comment.  It will inspire me to continue to do so.

Conundrum Alert: My "To Do" list is getting in the way of my "To Do" list.

Or, what to do when your to dos are getting in the way of what to do

The theme of today's blog post is prioritization.  As all four of my loyal readers know, I have a personal trainer. One motto of my personal trainer is that we should address our needs before our wants.  Sounds simple enough, I concluded upon hearing this sage piece of advice.  For example: I "need" to drink 70-100 oz of water each day, therefore, before I take a sip of coffee in the morning, I first swallow two Dixie cup shots of agua.  Case in point, I have addressed a need before a want.

Now, enter real life stage left.  Real life is messy and tends to blur what you need to do, with what you want to do.  If your life doesn't do this, please let me know what meds you're taking because I want some.  Before I start my work day (any day really), I try to figure out what I need to do and what I'd like to do.

What I needed to do today was:

A. Write a reference letter for a couple friend of ours who are adopting a baby
B. Finalize travel arrangements to go to Bouchercon
C. Invite people to my house on Sunday to go apple picking
D. Write a novel
E. Go to the dentist
F. Exercise
G. Figure out how to market a novel (see D above: "Write a novel")

By the time I piddled away a good chunk of the day on my list, I had hope that some of the items would morph into a want and by the very definition, would drop off my "To Do" list.  Sadly, that was not be.   I needed to do it all.

Enter paralyzing, overwhelming feeling stage right.

Once I got over my initial analysis paralysis, I managed to accomplish much of A-G today, with the  notable exception of D, for which I wrote nary a word.  As for G, "Figure out how to market a novel", I have a good list of stuff to consider, which in itself has given rise to a new "To Do" list.  Such a phenomenon I like to call a "Nested To Do List", as one item in the original "To Do" list has wrought another entirely different "To Do" list.  I have come to the conclusion that I am plagued by these "Nested To Do Lists", as though I haplessly continue to bring home pregnant guppies to add to my already overstocked aquarium.

So what's a fella to do?  I guess come morning I'll make a new "To Do" list.  Tell me, how do you prioritize your life and keep track of all the stuff you have to do?  Inquiring minds want to know.

How to start your novel, or not.

How to start your novel, or not

Step 1: write some words (text editor, pen/paper, back of a Dunkin Donuts receipt etc.)

Step 2: Repeat Step 1

I was looking for a shocking opener for today's post.  Something to grab the reader's attention and NOT let go.  The truth is, writing a novel really is that simple.  Writers write.  That's the only way you're going to get from A to B.  You have to just start writing and keep going from there.  It's sort of like working out in that way.

Afterwards, you'll revise, rewrite and revise some more.  If you're really serious about your craft, perhaps you'll show your masterpiece to your wife, husband, or for the more cautious amongst you, the family pet.  That's when you'll either be plagued with self-doubt, or replete from their glowing praise.  Then after you're really (really) serious about it, you might try to get an agent, or maybe go the self-publishing route.  Whatever your journey to literary heights may be, I'll be assured of one thing:  you at least did Step 1 and Step 2 (unless you used cmd-c and cmd-v to copy/paste and plagiarize your tome).

Now, just for a moment, I want you to forget about Step 1 and Step 2.  There are a couple additional steps that I take before I start writing a novel.  These precursor steps work for the thrillers I write, but I'm not as confident they're a must do for literary fiction, romance books, zombie sagas or cooking yarns, but perhaps they'll do.

My precursor steps to writing a novel are:
Precursor Step 1: Get yourself a good "what if" question
Precursor Step 2: Define your McGuffin


When we put it all together, the steps to writing a novel flow as follows:

Precursor Step 1: Get yourself a good "what if" question

Precursor Step 2: Define your McGuffin

Step 1: Write some words

Step 2: Repeat Step 1

Step 3: Fix the words you wrote in Step 1 and Step 2

Step 4: Show your work to the family pet (if said work is still suspect) or family member/friend (if not)

I'll elaborate a bit on the "What If" question here.  Fabuolous author (full disclosure, my father as well) Michael Palmer describes the "What  If" as follows:

"Preparation for every one of my books begins with a simple, one sentence (two at the absolute most), "What if" question. For example, creating The Patient began with the question: What if the most ruthless terrorist in the world had a brain tumor and needed surgery? For Extreme Measures, the question was: What if there was a drug (like the one described in Wade Davis's wonderful book, The Serpent and the Rainbow) that can make you look dead to a trained physician even though you aren’t. For The Sisterhood, I asked: What if there was a secret society of nurses dedicated to mercy killing? The “What if?” is the absolute beginning of each of my books. I work hard at crafting it, and then submit it to my agent or editor for scrutiny. The reward for that initial meticulousness is that I get to start on the long and harrowing road to a 400 page novel with clarity. I also have a brisk, tight way of describing my book to the publisher, an interviewer, or anyone else who asks."

The "What If" is essentially your book's guidepost, because a novel is a rather long journey to undertake without basic cartography skills.  If you don't have something that boils down the essence and core value of your work, you run the risk of adding stuff to your literary concoction that detracts from the flavor you so doggedly tried to release.  The "What If" showcases the point of your story--in other words, why should a reader be interested in what you're saying.  

Since the "What If" question fleshes out the big idea which defines your work, I'll be as bold as to suggest that you consider it a red flag, worthy of a story rethink, if yours doesn't at least raise an eyebrow or two.  Most of your story will flow from this central question, so it's essential that it be well crafted. From it, will come the characters in your yarn,  what's at stake in the book and most importantly, the conflicts to ensue.   I spend a great deal of time contemplating the "What If".  Once you have it down, then you've got to answer the other key question: why will the reader care?  Enter the McGuffin.

Author note: musings about the McGuffin I'll save for another post.   

Have you ever tried writing a "What If" question?  If so, I'd be keen on knowing your experience with the technique.

Danny's Getting Fit: Journal Entry #3

Danny's Getting Fit--Day 3

For those of you expressing concern over my health, I regret to inform you that I'm still sick.  The good news is I'm convinced it's not H1N1 (formally know as yadayadayada).  But I'm not 100% healthy either.

Today, I went to the trainer, half expecting to get a note to go see the school nurse and with any luck get my mom to pick me up so I could go home early.  Instead, he suggested I lift heavier weights for fewer reps., explaining that while I'm physically not at my peak, my strength hasn't really been affected by my cold.  What is impacted, he went on to say, is my endurance.  Now by "my" what I mean all of us, because we're all human and having a cold zaps water from muscles while our body engine heats up to fight off infection, which in turn saps our endurance, but not our strength.

Now to the workout:

For pulldowns, I did 150# for 10 reps.  Back on 9/5 most I could muster was 140# for 7 reps.  (cue Rocky theme music . . .)

Next up was the dreaded seated row.

I dread the seated row because the dang bar pulls at my hands and I have to use paper towels just to hold on to it.  But even sick, using a makeshift glove, I managed 150#/10 reps., which was 10 pound, 3 rep. improvement over the first time I did the exercise.

By now, I was really tired.  I was quite wobbly doing the bicep curls and I felt my back tweak out a bit while lifting.  I skipped the core/ab routine (which was supposed to be some sort of torture type crunch) but still did the post lifting cardio bit (burn baby burn).   Afterwards, I felt like hell.  But a good kind of hell, you know.

New fitness tips to share:

1. It's advised (not by me, mind you, but by certified folks who know this stuff) to always have a complete protein with every meal.  Complete proteins are basically anything that comes from an animal (including dairy), but you can also mix food to create a complete protein.  Don't ask me how you do that because I haven't a clue.  Today, I got a new recipe for a high protein nut mixture that I was told creates a complete protein because of the mix. Unless of course these are animal nuts, which I don't believe them to be.

Danny's High Powered/High Protein Nut Mixture

1. Soybeans (dry/unsalted)

2. Sunflower seeds

3. Almond slices

Note: You can add raisins/M&Ms or salted nuts for flavor but keep them to a minimum. 

I promised to elaborate on this salt thing as well.  Refresher from earlier posts: Salt = Bad, Potassium = Good.  Here's what I've learned on the topic: Apparently, there is the law in nature called the law of highest concentration.  I don't know if it's a real law or not, but let's assume for now that it is.  Below the skin, in the subcutaneous layer, the body stores sodium.  Below that, are cells which help to form muscle tissue.  If the body has a lot of salt (sodium/NA) I guess what happens is that you become bloated as the water moves to the area of highest concentration in the body.   In essence, you fill up the subcutaneous layer with water, thus bloating your skin.  This I'm told is bad.  By decreasing your sodium intake and increasing potassium levels, water will move to the cell layer and actually help pull your skin tighter.

So, let's say for all intents and purposes that my science here is completely flawed.  What isn't flawed, is that the less sodium you consume is probably a good thing and might make you less bloated.  Again, bloating, for the purposes of this post, we're assuming to be bad.

Some products with low sodium/high potassium are:

Mrs. Dash

Jim Beam's Marinades 

Here's a link to a table of foods that are high in potassium. 

In summary:  
Weight Loss-3 pounds (mostly because I'm sick and haven't been eating gold fish).  Strength Gain-a wee bit (despite cold)  Daniel Craigness Gain-0 (but I will shave today, so that should help some) 

Authors note:  I love tortilla chips and sea salt potato chips and there is a good chance I'm not going to follow this advice.  With that said, I'll do my best. 

Danny's Getting Fit: Journal Entry #2

Interval Training Day!

(Authors disclaimer: look, I'm a terrible proof reader.  I do my best, but as you'll soon read, it's not always good enough.  So while pursing this post, please forgive (or at least let me know) any typos, missing words, dangling participles or other failings on my part and you'll be none the worse for it.)

Day 2.  Interval Day.
Progress on achieving my Daniel Craig physique is proceeding as expected; with expected being at an imperceptible pace.  Today was an interval running day.  Unfortunately for me, I think I'm at the beginning stages of a cold, or if my hyperactive imagination has anything to say about it, the start of an H1N1 (formally known as swine flu, but thanks to the ongoing PR efforts of the people who farm pigs/swine for a living, no longer called that) illness.   Chances are, it's just a cold.

I don't know about you, but working out when I'm under the weather turns something that is already tedious into something that is all the more so.  But it's that feeling of accomplishment afterwards, when all is said and done, and I can pat myself proudly on the back for the effort, knowing that I have at least fourteen hours to go before I'm slated to do it again. That's what inspires me to push through the misery.  So push I did.

Because I'm not feeling 100% healthy, I throttled the run back a bit.  I kept it at a 20 minute run.  Normally, I do the following:

Warmup 1 minute @ 10:30 minute miles

1st Interval Set
1 min. 10 min. mile pace
1 min. 8:30 min. mile pace
1 min. 8:00 min. mile pace
1 min. 7:30 min. mile pace

Then I start another set.  For the last set (I do 4 sets) I finish with a 1 min. sprint at a 7:00 mile pace (I've been running 18 minutes after that heinousness is blessedly over), then I do 1 min. at the 10 min. mile pace and 1 min. at the warmup pace.  20 minutes and its done. It's the equivalent in cardiovascular benefit to a 50 minute run (I've been told).  At this point, I want to keel over and die.  Some benie but yeah for me anyway!

Now, you don't have to run at this pace to get the same workout.  It's all about your heart rate.  Optimal for this sort of training is an interval that takes your heart rate from 60% max to 90% max, then back to 60%.  Here's a link to a calculator that can help compute your target heart rate.

Here's another link to learn more about interval running on a treadmill.

I'm told that running after weightlifting is better for weight loss and that running intervals is best for cardiovascular health.  If you ask me, both hurt the same.  Apparently, what the intervals also do is jump start your metabolism so that you burn through calories faster.

Quiz time!  Should you run first, then lift weights?

Thinking . . . thinking . . .

The answer is, no.  I guess it's counter productive because cardio will burn through the glycogen stores first, then attack the fat, while weightlifting will burn through glycogen stores first, then cannibalize muscle.  Creepy, I know.  So running before lifting is actually counter productive to your goal, because you'll end up burning muscle lifting if you've used up all the glycogen doing cardio beforehand.  If the science is off here, I've at least got the concept right.

Now, don't get me wrong.  You want to STRETCH your muscles before you lift weights.  What your muscles want is oxygenated blood.  So instead of cardio before you lift, you could do a warmup set with weights, stretch that muscle while breathing in deeply (6-10 times, each side) to get blood with loads of oxygen flowing to the muscle.  Then do you heavier weight sets.

Last night's failing (a photo essay):
It is hard to live by the rules of Daniel Craigness, as evidenced by this picture.  In it you'll see a beer and my son's pretzel goldfish, which I consumed last night (after dinner).  So I did my run today.  The benefit of running (while sick) was that I didn't lose ground.  But because of last night's "fiesta con salty fish" I suspect I didn't gain much either.  Who cares?  I'd rather eat goldfish then look like Daniel Craig anyway.

In summary:  
Weight Loss-0.  Strength Gain-0  Physique Goal Reach Gain-0  Goldfish Consumed-Plenty

Next post I promise to talk about why potassium rocks and salt doesn't, but that's enough for now.

Need Wanted: Interpret Daniel's Dream

The dreams I have, the ones I remember most, are the ones that happen early in the morning.  Not sure if that's true for everybody else, but it sure is for me.  To set the stage, let's rewind last night to about 5:00AM.  My oldest woke up wanting desperately to take a shower.  This isn't a dream mind you.  This happened (as he would say) in real life.  Not sure why, but he was insistent on getting in the shower at that time.  I was more insistent on him going back to sleep.  We negotiated back and forth a bit, his words mumbled by the early morning confusion, while mine were affected only by the mouth guard I wear a night because I grind my teeth.  Eventually he relented, opting to get into my bed in place of a shower.

We tossed and turned a bit until we both fell fast asleep again.  Then came the dream . . .

(if this were a movie/TV show and not a blog, this is where images would shift, things would get fuzzy, the music would change to an ominous mood providing several visual cues that we're entering a dream sequence now would ensue)

I'm living in the same town I live in today.  I'm guessing that's were I am, because I'm not sure what town it is, but in my dream it feels like home.  Right away I know that something is wrong.  I've left the pizza that I was supposed to bring home to my wife at somebody's house.  The house where I left the pizza was a friend I suppose, but I don't know this person from my real life.  The guy in my dream looked a lot like Roy Scheider, who is definitely not a personal friend of mine, though I do admire his acting chops immensely.  Jaws especially.

Anyway, I got the pizza home and I intended on sharing it with my wife.  But she was busy doing all sorts of other things (eating pizza not being one of them).  She couldn't make time for even a bite.  I kept walking past the pizza (now on the kitchen counter) and whenever I passed by, I'd nibble at a slice.  I passed by the kitchen counter a lot apparently.  Eventually there was one slice left and I took a bite of that one too, gulped upon realizing that was the last piece of pizza and my wife hadn't had any yet.

Then I realized something else.  When I picked up the pizza up from Roy's house it wasn't a full pie.  In my dreamy mind I could remember Roy saying something like--"it's almost all there".  I figured Roy had a couple slices still at his house that were technically my slices.  I didn't hesitate calling him back to ask if I could come over to get them.

When Roy answered the phone, in the backround I heard his teenage sons yelling they had to leave  for school.  Suddenly, I felt very awkward and foolish about wanting to go back to Roy's house to pick  up a couple left behind slices of pizza.  Despite my hesitancy, I asked Roy if I could drop by and pick them up.  An awkward long pause ensued.  Eventually, Roy said I could.

The dream ended with my retrieving the slices from Roy's house, Roy commenting on the effort I put out to get those slices back and his questioning why I just didn't go to the pizza place and order a new pie for my wife.

Then I woke up.

I realize it's easy to say: "This dream means you're a nut case (nut bag, cuckoo-head, whack job whatever)".  I'm hopeful for more thoughtful insights of the subconscious interpretations, so if you have any, please share.

Danny's Getting Fit: Journal Entry #1

This will be a on-going series of journal type blog posts, interspersed with my other musings. The focus here will be on my personal mission to get fit.  With these entries, I hope others might benefit from my experience.

So with that 411, let the fitness journey begin.

Danny's Getting Fit-Day 1
Actually it's day 15, but for the purposes of theses posts, let's call it day 1.

Normally I do not go by Danny.  I go by Daniel.  It was a conscious choice I made as young man, after falling in love with Elisabeth Shue (aka Ali Mills) in the Karate Kid.  Remember-Daniel with an I, Ali with an L.  But I go by Danny whenever:

a. I'm drinking beers with my band mates (hasn't happened for about 18 years now)

b. I need the encouragement because what I'm doing really blows and I don't want to do it anymore, as in--"Go Danny!  You can do it!"

So for the purposes of getting fit, I will hereby refer to myself as Danny.  Because let's face it, working hard at getting fit requires A LOT of encouragement.

Next you should know that I have hired the services of a personal trainer.  Why did I do this?  I mean lifting weights isn't too hard to figure out.  Push down on bar.  Move heavy plates.  Repeat.  After months of working out at the gym and reading different "how to" books and blogs and such I wasn't getting any fitter or stronger.  I invested in a professional who promised to teach me:

1. How to get stronger and more conditioned
2. How to eat right to stay stronger

He went on to say that it's up to me but if I really wanted to do it, I could have washboard abs and a Daniel Craig physique, to which I naturally responded, 'Hell Yeah!' without having a clue what it would take to get washboard abs and a Daniel Craig physique.

I must confess, having a professional trainer explain to me the do's and don'ts, the why's and why nots of this and that makes a HUGE difference in the results.  Yes, it isn't cheap.  Perhaps for the cost of a personal trainer I could drive around in a much nicer leased car.  To that, my wife smartly pointed out when I brought up the subject of cost, "sure, you can drive your out of shape self around in a nicer car.  Sounds like a good plan."  If sarcasm doesn't translate well in a blog post, please note, she was being sarcastic.

For these posts I'm going communicate what work I did, what gains I made and my nutrition plan.  I'll try to keep them short and sweet so they're easily consumed.

I have three weight training days.

They are:
1. Pushing days: bench press, seated military press and triceps pulldown
2. Leg days: squats, leg lifts and hamstring curls
3. Pulling days: lat pull down, seated row and biceps curl

We do a different abs workout each day that works a different set of core muscles.

I'm told we break it up this way because it will maximize building muscle and give me a full body workout over the course of three weight training days.

I run 4x a week.  2x I run right after lifting weights because I'm told I've burned all the glycogen in my muscles and an aerobic work after weight training is automatically a fat burning workout.  So 20 minutes at a slow pace, say 10 min. miles, is the equivalent of a 40 minute run at the same pace.  More bang for my buck!  The other 2 runs are interval runs and I'll write about those on interval days.  By the way, intervals blow.  Really hard.

Today was leg day.  Leg day is my least favorite day because it hurts immensely.  By immensely I mean, I wish it would end before it began and I would denounce my love for Elisabeth Shue, God and Country if it would.  That of course is only in the heat of the moment.  The good thing about leg day is I don't have to run after.  So here's a breakdown of today's pain/gain:

Smith Squats
I keep a workout journal.  I think it's a must have so you can visualize your progress.  The first day I did Smith Squats as they're called, my max weight was 140 pounds for 12 reps on 9/2.  Today, 9/16, I did 180 for 10 reps.  That's a really substantial jump in a short amount of time.  And you know something, I felt a lot stronger today then the first time I did it.

When I lift, I try to do 15 reps. at each weight.  There is benefit to failing.  There is massive benefit to failing.  But more on later in another post.

Leg Extensions
I managed 115 for 12 reps. today (9/16).  When I started my best was 110 for 10.  YEAH FOR ME!

Leg Curls 
I got 115 for 10 today (9/16).  When I started my best was 110 for 10.  So again, YEAH FOR ME!

I'm eating six meals a day and soon will experiment with carb cycling.  More on  nutrition to come, but to keep this as compact as possible I'll tell you that today I plan on cooking chicken breast (cut up) mixed in with Jim Beam teriyaki sauce (low sodium is KEY, but more on that later) and tons of veggies.  For lunch I'll have rice with it.  For dinner, I'm just going to have the mix.  Why?  More on that later too.

This is an education for me in fitness and healthy eating.  My trainer, Jean-Paul Cafarella C.P.T. (603) 557-4767 says that I can get "ripped".  And I believe him.

That's it for today.  I hope you found this interesting and useful for you.  Leave me a comment and let me know.  I'll continue the journal so that we can motivate ourselves to a fitter us together.

Your effort means nothing if it's not "Brady Effort"

Tom Brady: Alien life form, or just insanely determined?

Obviously, Tom Brady is not an alien.  Although it's arguable he possesses superpowers unlike any found in 99.99% of all humanity.  But let's assume for a moment that Tom's DNA is no different than your DNA, or mine.  What makes Brady so great?  Forget if you will, Giselle (just for a moment, OK). Don't ponder the past with Bridget either.  Let's focus on Brady and football.  How does Tom Brady and football relate to me, you may wonder? Chances are you are not Tom Brady.  Chances also are that you are not even an professional NFL quarterback.  There is a much higher probability that you are working IT for some software company, a Internet person at some startup, into finance, a writer, travel industry, whatever.  I'm assuming for the purpose of this post that you have either a) a job, or b) a passion.  

If we convert Tom Brady into a mere mortal and make him, Tom Brady the accountant and not Tom Brady the football player, I am willing to bet that Tom Brady would still be a star accountant.  Why would that be?

You hear these sound bites from Brady (and others) often on ESPN or whatever sports program you might be watching:  "I work hard." "I believe in my team and coaches."  "Blah, blah, blah."

I'm suggesting where Brady is concerned, that these are more than just sound bites.  When Tom says he works hard, I'm willing to bet that he works harder than EVERYBODY ELSE.  When Tom says he has to earn respect from his teammates and coaches, not expect it, I'm willing to bet that he tries harder than EVERYBODY ELSE to earn it.

With that in mind, here are some tips I'm offering to help "Brady" yourself.  Note: I don't necessarily follow these tips because I'm not Tom Brady, but if I were to follow them, I might just experience more success on and off the "field o' life".  

Daniel's 3 Tips to "Bradying" Yourself:

1. Don't expect anything.  Earn it.

I used to get frustrated a work when my ideas weren't being pushed to the head of the queue.  I would blame everybody else for not seeing "the genius" that is me!  Then one day I decided to change my point of view. I said to myself, "look if the idea isn't taking shape it's not their fault, it's mine."  Either I haven't earned enough respect to get the idea pushed through, or I wasn't being effective in communicating it.  When I got rejected (20+ times for my fiction) I didn't blame the publishing industry for my failings.  I blamed myself and pushed harder to overcome their objections with higher quality output, eventually landing a publishing deal.  So respect isn't a right, it's a privilege and Brady knows that well.

2. Do your best.

This I know is pretty dang trite.  But it's one of those easy to say, harder to do mantras.  At the end of a day, I strive to feel physically and emotionally spent.  I want to experience that fatigue because it means I pushed myself to my limit.  I recently started working out with a trainer.  He's helping me with strength and conditioning.  After my work sets, he'll ask me to do pushups.  When I couldn't do even one pushup, he smiled and said simply--good.  He was testing to see if I had pushed myself as hard as I could push.  For Brady that sort of effort is a reflex, like our breathing air.  He's practiced living with a do your best philosophy for so long, it's natural for him to do every minute of every day.  For most of us, it takes a conscious effort to do until instinct eventually kicks in.

3. Failure is good.

Tom goes out expecting to win.  He believes he'll help his team win every game.  But when he loses, it doesn't shake his core belief in Tom.  He reflects on it.  He feels the sting of disappointment mightily.  He uses that hurt to push himself to new levels.  So Tom isn't afraid of losing.  He's more afraid of not caring deeply enough about losing to push himself to new heights.  Everybody runs the risk of failing at something.  But if you face those fears and turn it into a force for personal change--now that's the Brady way.  The subtlety of the Brady way is in knowing the difference between the fear of failure as a motivating factor and fearing failure as an inhibiting one.  

Now, I don't know Tom Brady personally.  But just watching him play football tells me enough about the man to believe that yes, he's quite possibly an alien life form, with a sick work ethic, who's not afraid to fail (even though he fears failure) and who believes nothing is guaranteed except your personal commitment to yourself.  Preachy I know.  But inspiring nonetheless.

What's your take on success at work and life and the Brady Way?  Would love to read your thoughts. 

Oh Qwitter! Follow Me, Don't Follow Me!

It's been gnawing at me for a few days now.  I get what Twitter is all about.  It's a cool, simple and often fun way to check into the thoughts of people you find interesting.  The trouble is, I'm often not that interesting.  Now, I don't know about you.  Maybe you're always interesting.  Maybe soon as you wake up and brush your teeth, or whatever you do, interesting and witty observations about topics of supreme relevancy just come to you.  That doesn't happen to me.  I'm usually making cream cheese toast (sans crust) or lying on the floor encouraging my daughter to roll.  My wife may ask, "didn't you make coffee?"  And I'll say something like, "no, do you think I should Tweet that?"  And she'll say something like, "No, how about Tweet this!"  And then she'll do something with her finger that I'm pretty sure you can conjure up a workable image.

But I feel compelled to "Tweet" because I have followers.  Don't ask me how I got them because I'm not that interesting.  But I do my best to Tweet things people will find interesting (or at least not boring/obnoxious).   The idea of somebody following you one day, then not following you (or unfollowing you) the next, to me is akin to them saying--"well, I no longer believe you're going to say anything interesting ever again."  So when somebody "unfollows" me on Twitter, I can't help but take it personally.  I mean it's not a professional rejection.  I don't get paid to Tweet.  Perhaps my personality doesn't translate well into 140 characters.  Maybe I don't really care.  I mean, if I stopped Tweeting tomorrow, I doubt a rift would form in the space time continuum.   But were I to attempt to stop my cream cheese toast making obligation, well I assure you, time and space would shift in dramatic, near awe-inspiring ways (at least inside my house).

Still, why does it hurt so when I'm "unfollowed"?

Why should I care that somebody quit on me?  Thanks to Qwitter, you can now find out the who and even when somebody stopped caring about you.  It's a good chance that person was a spammer whose account had been shuttered by the folks at Twitter.  But I've had the unpleasant occasion of attempting to direct messaging somebody who was following me and I them, but received instead a message explaining that I couldn't message that person because the 'insert username of cad who unfollowed me here' isn't following me anymore.  That bitter sting of rejection was a cold reminder that even anonymous "friends", whom I haven't spoken with in person for over twenty-years, can hurt your feelings if you're too sensitive about such nonsense.  Which I admit to being.  As a resolve, I must thicken my skin.  So I say: follow me or don't follow me.  Sorry, R.E.M., but I still don't get what 'I've got my spine, I've got my orange crush' means.


Words into action:
Follow me on Twitter here.
Don't follow me on Twitter here.

Bottom line is that Twitter is here to stay and I'm going to use it gosh dangit, even if my only followers are wondering where their cream cheese toast is at.

What's your take on the Twitter Following/Unfollowing phenomenon?  Comments wanted.