A Piggyback a day...

I saw another hawk today!!  But enough about that.

Something did happen to me though that does symbolize the need for a direction in my life:  So there was this small child; I snuck up behind him and did this running, Superman maneuver complete with inverted flip over my head which was flawless!  The 1 witness of the maneuver later confirmed that it was, in fact, "really cool", but unfortunately my shoulder joint exploded somewhere mid-inverted flip.  And keep in mind people...this was my good shoulder.

So you might ask: "McLean, who is this small child and why are you picking him up from behind and doing anything to him?"

or

"McLean, what the heck does this have to do with symbolism and direction in life?"

Both are good questions.

You see, the fact that I hurt myself while playing with a child is symbolic of the fact that I am having trouble doing the things that I love to do.  Knowing, as I do, that my direction in life is to work with youth, the way forward seems clear.  It's time to whip myself into physical shape for this trip to South America.

I'm already a pretty healthy guy.  I don't smoke, I don't drink very often, I don't eat fast food on the weekends.  I have this uncanny ability to whip into shape fairly quickly.  For example a couple of years back I decided to do a triathlon.  My 4th (out of 4) times that I trained for the running portion, I decided to go out and time myself running a mile.  I pushed it and came in at like 6:05 or something crazy like that! ( I have witnesses to that as well)  My point is, with 2 months to go, it's about time to kick it into gear so that I can

Hike up the Inca Trail

Dash Through the Amazon Jungle

Or hang out on  swim the beaches of Argentina

So, having said that I resolve to, by this time next week, have a workout schedule planned complete with cute, experiential names that have to do with South America (i.e. "escaping piranhas" instead of "swimming" and "running down a pickpocket" instead of "running").

Interesting side note:

I heard on OPB today that humans can outrun pretty much anything over a long enough distance; especially on a hot day.  Even though a lot of predators could run us down in a sprinting situation, we have lots of advantages when it comes to long-distance chasing.  I'm not looking to do quite that kind of running in South America, I just thought it was cool.

If you have any exercises you swear by, that fit easily into a daily routine, drop a note in the comments (Currently labeled "High Fives" at the bottom of each post), or just take that as an opportunity to verbally spar - I need to practice that for haggling and conversing with road scholars anyway.

and oh yes,

This is that small child, 

and I was Superman-ing him cause we're buddies, and I would hope that any buddy of mine that was physically capable of picking me up and making me fly like Superman, would darn well do it every chance they got!


La palabra español del dia: "rutina diaria" - daily routine