mrbriandesign

fun fact: alcohol has a profound, negative impact on testosterone levels. enjoy your weekend !

My friends and I used to hit up tons of flea markets and yard sales during high school and into college, hunting for vintage toys, Americana, and all kinds of random junk. We were pretty serious about it, we even had walkie-talkies and had seperate categories for the most part: vehicle toys, action figures, Japanese robots, Star Wars stuff, and so on. My obsession was advertising figures and brand mascots, e.g. Smokey the Bear, Pillsbury Doughboy, even a Ritalin promo figure at one point. About 99% of my collection was sold off in the span of two years, mostly at Mandarake in Tokyo and eBay. What’s left are my cold dead hands, obscure, can’t be replaced crew of pocket-sized figures I’ll never part with. There are few more but the are my favorites.

don’t know about the rest of rural Japan, but in Kyushu, there are a few options for maintaining a yard/lawn, none of which include a lawnmower. the first is do nothing, but the hirsute approach is not highly recommended in our subtropical climate unless mosquitoes and other swarming insects are your thing. another popular option is to weedwhack everything down to the dirt and enervate any remnant of plant matter, scorching the earth in a cloud of dust and then, very carefully with a high-power leaf blower, distribute any remaining detritus into the immediate environment but it’s not ideal for your neighbors, especially if they happen to be hanging their laundry out to dry that day. the next option involves carefully cultivating moss, which is only practical if the space is north-facing. finally (my preferred method) is the dry garden, which generally requires some version of landscape fabric, spikes, gravel, and/or rocks (think kyoto zen garden). the dry garden approach is a pretty low-maintenance, aesthetically satisfying option if you prefer not to spend your weekends toiling, pulling, and warding off weeds.

I’ve gone through a handful of roadbikes in the past decade or two, the GIANT TCR (KOM) , Canyon AeroRoad, several mid tier Italian bikes with fancy group sets, and even a Schwinn from the 90’s but this TREK from 2014 outlived and out performed all of them. I call this white beast ‘karen’ and we’ve put in rediculous mileage in Japan, Korea, Germany and Poland. Although I’ve burned out completely on endurance cycling, This bike still triggers alacrity in me, still crushing short, steep, abrupt, neighborhood hill climbs most days with undiminished ferocity. Strava: mrbriandesign

Second visit to our local orthopedic clinic this month for hylaronic acid injections, in each shoulder, to ameliorate pain from wear and tear. This treatment allows me to keep going heavy on the weights. The shoulders really take a beating during and after heavy upper body sessions. The doc gladly increased the volume today when I asked, which was cool. Also covered under (compulsory) national health insurance so it only cost about ¥1200 / $8 (thank you japan) One course per year (once a week for six weeks) drastically reduces pain from; bone spurs, osteoarthritis, overuse, etc. Ironically, I got into weight training 12 years ago because of shoulder pain from long distance cycling. The primary cause of joint degeneration in shoulders is a lack of circulation. That happens over time (gravity), especially if arms are in a fixed position for extended periods (driving, cycling, desk work) and overuse (golf, pitching baseball) so getting a good pump brings more blood to the soft tissue. I warm up shoulders with a couple sets of face pulls and forward dumbell presses every time. Another great shoulder move for increasing blood flow is raising the arm vertically over the head and spinning a bicycle tire tube vigorously in a circular motion (without moving the wrist) clock wise for 69 seconds and counterclockwise for 69 seconds, then at different angles. This (peculiar) exercise will most likely ameliorate shoulder joint pain significantly if mobility allows.✌️ (obviously not medical health advice)

Come to daddy… I’ve been re-learning poker at work and teaching what I learn to my students. Crypto has opened so many doors over the years through the wide range of people that we get to interact with and absorb things from. Yesterday at ‘work’ there was a last minute make-up lesson that turned out to be fortuitous for me as I was dealt a straight for the first time by one of our students. Pretty exciting.

☀️ ubiquity in it’s purest form https://music.apple.com/jp/album/everybody-loves-the-sunshine/1469585186?i=1469585198&l=en-US

I relegate myself to shoulder day. Dumbell raises or cables ?