For my LP I’m going to let whoever reads this decide. I don’t think many people do, but whatever.
Monthly Archives: February 2012
Project Let’s Play
Hey guys,
I’m still in the process of figuring out what game I want to do a Let’s Play with. In addition I am still getting to know my new Kitten, so that project is on hold for another week.
Project Fitness – Work out 4 – Picture Update
This is my first work-out without N.O. Explode. I wanted to see if the stuff had any real benefits to anything I was doing. Unfortunately I don’t know what happened but I got severely dizzy about 3/4th’s what I wanted to do, so I am going back to the gym today to do the rest of the stuff I wanted to do and maybe a legs work-out but I might leave that for Saturday Morning. I know I should be working my lower body more regularly but I still haven’t decided on what is a good work-out for it. It sounds like a cop-out I know but eh fuck you :-p
Weigh-in: 207 lbs
Bench Press
| Reps | Weight |
| 15 | 135 lbs |
| 10 | 205 lbs |
| 8 | 225 lbs |
| 5 | 225 lbs |
| 5 | 205 lbs |
| 12 | 135 lbs |
I’ve got to say that when I got up to 225lbs today it felt a lot better, a lot more comfortable and a lot more natural. I wish I had someone to spot me so I could try to do more.
Push-Ups – Simple push-ups, arms shoulder with apart and proper form.
20 reps
20 reps
15 reps
10 reps
Sit Ups on Ball – This is where I started to feel dizzy and spacey. I didn’t think anything of it and kept going.
50 reps
40 reps
30 reps
30 reps
23 reps
Laterial Raises
| Reps | Weight |
| 15 | 10 lbs each hand |
| 15 | 10 lbs each hand |
| 15 | 10 lbs each hand |
| 10 | 10 lbs each hand |
At this point I started to notice that I was having trouble maintaining my balance. This concerned me a little bit and I took a 3-5 minute break trying to get my composure and focus back in the work-out. I then tried to resume my work-out
Bicep – I did two sets of Bicep curls before I started feeling too dizzy to stand. The first one was 15x35lbs and 15x40lbs.
And now for the part I don’t like. I got a new phone which takes better pictures than the last one but I feel I look a lot worse
Project Fitness – Workout 3
Today was the second recorded work-out with N.O. Explode 2.0. I don’t like it. I find that it makes me really tingly and really itchy and it makes me more distracted than focused. I’m going to try to work out on Wednesday without it to see if my performance actually changes significantly because I honestly don’t believe it will. This was a bit of a shorter workout because of the fact that I had to clean my apartment for my new roommate (A Kitten).
Bench Press
| Reps | Weight |
| 10 | 135 lbs |
| 10 | 205 lbs |
| 8 | 225 lbs |
| 5 | 225 lbs |
| 8 | 205 lbs |
| 11 | 185 lbs |
| 8 | 185 lbs |
| 13 | 135 lbs |
Chest Flies - These were done using a Life Fitness Cable Motion.
| Reps | Weight |
| 20 | 22.5 lbs each side |
| 13 | 32.5 lbs each side |
| 9 | 32.5 lbs each side |
| 13 | 27.5 lbs each side |
| 10 | 27.5 lbs each side |
Preacher Curls - I do these a bit different because of the fact that my gym sucks and doesn’t actually have a preacher curl station. So instead of doing them with a curling bar, I do them with a dumbbell and one arm at a time.
| Reps | Weight |
| 10 | 25 lbs each hand |
| 10 | 35 lbs each hand |
| 10 | 35 lbs each hand |
| 10 | 35 lbs each hand |
Super Slow Bicep Curls - During this exercise, I basically do a regular bicep curl but as slow as possible on the way down. Essentially fighting gravity to hold the weight as long as possible.
| Reps | Weight |
| 5 | 25 lbs each hand |
| 5 | 35 lbs each hand |
| 5 | 25 lbs each hand |
Triceps - I felt that in my previous workout, I cheated which allowed me to get the high weight I did. So this time I focused on going slow, and being in control and getting a good work out.
| Reps | Weight |
| 19 | 55 lbs |
| 13 | 67.5 lbs |
| 10 | 77.5 lbs |
| 13 | 67.5 lbs |
| 15 | 40 lbs |
Finally for Abs, I did 8 Minute Abs.
Project Programming – Day 1 – Learning C++
Hey People.
So I decided with the influence of one of my developer friends to learn C++. I am going to be following along with the site http://www.learncpp.com/. These posts will describe the sections I’ve covered and also what little mini side projects I’ve been working on. I’m hoping as time progresses I get involved into a much larger project and hopefully GUI based programs, then a simple video game, and then finally a real video game.
Today I covered sections 1.1 to 1.3 at work, which covered the basic structures of a program. The side project I did was a simple console app that presented the user with a simple menu, that they would choose whether they wanted to do Addition, Subtraction, Multiplication, or Division. Once they selected which one they wanted, they then could do an unlimited amount of numbers, and when they decided to stop adding numbers by entering 0, the program would report their answer. Here are some screen grabs from the .EXE
So that’s the update on that. If you want the code I used to do it, feel free to leave a comment.
Project Fitness – Day 2 – Legs
So today I did a quick work out of my lower body. It was quick because I either need to really practice my squat form or find an exercise to replace them, because I always am worried about hurting myself when I do squats. Anyways here’s the summary of the five exercises I did today
Squats
| Reps | Weight |
| 10 | 115 lbs |
| 10 | 115 lbs |
| 9 | 115 lbs |
| 8 | 135 lbs |
| 3 | 135 lbs |
On the last set I got too nervous about hurting myself so I stopped.
Calf Raises
| Reps | Weight |
| 30 | 18 |
| 25 | 21 (Machine Max) |
| 25 | 21 |
| 25 | 21 |
| 20 | 21 |
| 34 | 15 |
Leg Presses
| Reps | Weight |
| 10 | 15 |
| 10 | 15 |
| 10 | 15 |
| 10 | 13 |
| 10 | 10 |
| 20 | 10 |
I then attempted to do leg raises but my hip flexors started to feel weird so I stopped. I just finished 8 Minute abs.
Short workout. Once I get more of a routine set for legs it’ll be longer.
Projects
I’ve come up with a schedule or projects that I am going to stick with in order to continue bettering myself. I feel that this is a pretty aggressive schedule but each of them I’ll love doing so I’ll stick with it. Plus each project will give me the motivation to keep writing in this blog. The updates won’t be so much life updates, more like project updates and each project should be separate entities even though most of them will collide with one another.
So let’s get started. This will be organized by days of the week.
Monday – Guitar
In senior year of high school I took a class called “Intro to Acoustic Guitar.” I loved playing guitar in that class and the songs were primarily lead pieces and very simple rhythm pieces. I fully expected to have the time to continue progressing in my guitar playing throughout college but unfortunately due to sheer fear of being judged by my guitar wielding friends and lack of time to dedicate to practice, I never much improved. However now that I live on my own, I can dedicate a couple hours at least one day a week, maybe more on other days. But the thing is, I’ll be writing a summary of what I have been practicing, what theory I’ve been learning, what songs I’ve been learning and HOPEFULLY a video of me playing a song. The song is going to force me out of my comfort zone because well, I don’t like performing in front of people when I’m nervous. That summary will come out on Monday Night’s.
Tuesday – Let’s Plays
Let’s be honest, I love video games. And I have not one but two computers which are strong enough to play some decent video games. So what I’m going to be doing is restarting my Let’s Play Channel, in which I play a game and give commentary similar to Helloween4545 on YouTube. These videos will be posted on this blog, but will be uploaded to my second YouTube channel (of which you can see the remenants of the first Let’s Play Trial) – http://www.youtube.com/Roymond35
I fully expect that I may do more than one game at a time. I might do a let’s play of Minecraft in addition to a Let’s Play of Skyrim, and I also fully expect that when I get into a game, the videos will come out more often but at the very least it will be once a week.
Wednesday – Work Out Progress
The current plan for this project is to upload a blog post after EVERY workout I do. But on Wednesdays in addition to the normal work out, I’ll post pictures of my progress. The format of the posts will be similar to the one you saw yesterday.
Thursdays – Programming
I’ve always been a sucker for programming. Several times throughout my college career I debated changing majors to computer science just so I could learn programming more. The first language I’m going to learn is C++. I’m going to post weekly updates of the struggles I’m having as well as ZIP files of the little programs I have been working on so that way people can see the progression of my coding confidence.
Saturdays – Foreign Language
I’ve always wanted to learn a foreign language and I’ve decided that I’m going to dedicate at least 2 hours on Saturday to learn and practice it. I know that dedicating such a small amount of time to it will hinder the progress of it, but again, I expect to practice and do little exercises in between. This will start up NEXT Saturday (Feb 25th) because I haven’t completely decided on a language I want to learn yet.
Sundays – Website Design
As you can see from the relative inactivity of Total Recoil, my dad has abandoned that idea. The truth is he’s abandoned the name and instead of Total Recoil, he’s purchased the domain name Blackhawk13.com and tasked me to design the entire website from scratch. So I will be doing most of this on Sundays.
Other Stuff
There is one more thing that I have yet to talk about, but it is going to play a significant role in nearly all my projects. Video Editing. I will still be making videos of my dad and I shooting guns, as well as the videos of me playing guitar, the Let’s Play Videos, and if I decide to do some other videos along the way then I will be posting them here or in the very least on one of my two channels.
Project My Body
My friend Josh said that I need a project to distract myself from the fact that my ex chose someone else over me and that it would help with the healing process so I’m going to make myself a project. I’ve never been absolutely happy with my body so I am going to use this blog as motivation to get more in shape. I’m going to post my entire workout for the day (which generally I work out Monday, Wednesdays and Fridays but I am going to add at least one more day dedicated to legs/lower body) and most importantly I’m going to do something that I am normally very bashful of. Post pictures of my progress.
Weigh in today: 206 lbs
Work out:
Bench Press (Today was on the LifeFitness bench machine because I couldn’t get anything else)
| Reps | Weight |
| 15 | 14 |
| 10 | 21 (Machine Max) |
| 7 | 21 |
| 6 | 19 |
| 6 | 19 |
| 8 | 13 |
Incline Bench Press (First set on same Machine as Bench Press, last 4 on Smith Machine)
| Reps | Weight |
| 10 | 13 |
| 5 | 185 lbs |
| 5 | 185 lbs |
| 7 | 155 lbs |
| 6 | 155 lbs |
Lat Pull Down – Back on LifeFitness Machine
| Reps | Weight |
| 15 | 10 |
| 10 | 12 |
| 10 | 14 |
| 9 | 14 |
| 10 | 12 |
Shrugs – First, Second and Last Set done with dumbbells, Had to move to the machine for the other two for the heavier weight.
| Reps | Weight |
| 35 | 50 lbs each hand |
| 25 | 50 lbs |
| 20 | 57.5 lbs |
| 15 | 77.5 lbs |
| 20 | 50 lbs |
Crunches on a Workout Ball
50
20 (very slow)
20 (very slow)
20 (very slow)
20 (very slow)
Crunches with Legs on Workout Ball
40
35 (very slow)
30 (very slow)
25 (very slow)
Bicep Curls – Standing unsupported.
| Reps | Weight |
| 15 | 40 lbs each hand |
| 10 | 45 lbs each hand |
| 5 | 50 lbs each hand (plus 5 hammer curls) |
| 9 (all hammer curls) | 50 lbs each hand |
| 9 | 40 lbs each hand |
| 10 | 25 lbs each hand |
| 15 | 25 lbs each hand |
Tricep Pull Down using Rope
| Reps | Weight |
| 20 | 62.5 lbs |
| 15 | 87.5 lbs |
| 13 | 87.5 lbs |
| 5 | 97.5 lbs |
| 11 | 77.5 lbs |
| 15 | 57.5 lbs |
| 20 | 37.5 lbs |
What I want to add for the next workout. Skull Crushers, 21′s. The reason I didn’t have them this time is because honestly, I am very hungry.
Now for the Part I hate the most… Pictures. These are from my phone because I could not find my camera, so kind of low quality.
What do I want out of this project:
Honestly, What I want to do is get it so I can look at myself from the front and not feel kind of chubby. It’s always been a problem of mine and it’s my goal to just get rid of it.





