Sunday, September 13, 2009

Relaxing weekend

With my wife and son out of town for the weekend, and the recovery from the PRP treatment limiting my workouts, I've had a very relaxing weekend.

Friday night, my daughter and I went for groceries. I stopped at the guitar store to look for some music books that included simple tunes. I ended up buying four books - two books of "easy" rock tunes, one book with "three chord" tunes, and a book of Nirvana tunes. There are a few Nirvana songs that seem like they should be fairly easy, with "All Apologies" topping the list.

Saturday morning, I took garbage to the dump, went to the farmers market, and then went to the gym for some upper body lifting. I've been doing a lot more upper body lifting recently because of my hamstring, and my pull-ups are getting much better. Yesterday's workout included 8x3 pull-ups alternated with overhead barbell presses, also 8x3, and all with short rest. I was very happy with how I handled that superset.

After the workout, I headed home to watch the Penn State vs. Syracuse game. At one point, the camera panned right by where my brother's seats are (which is where my wife and son were sitting yesterday), but I couldn't find them. After the Penn State game, I turned on the Michigan-Notre Dame game with no volume and pulled out my guitar. I practiced for about an hour, spending most of that time on All Apologies. The notes are easy, but even after an hour, it still barely sounded like it was supposed to. I did notice later that I was supposed to change the tuning of the D string for the song, so maybe I'll try that today.

After I practiced the guitar, my daughter and I headed to Burlington so she could buy a book and we could go out to dinner together. She had requested dinner at A Single Pebble, which is one of Vermont's best restaurants. The founder of the restaurant recently retired, but our dinner was still fantastic. I let my daughter pick our dinner and she ordered all of the classic items from their menu.

When we got home, I watched the second half of the Ohio State-USC game and then stayed up late watching stupid TV shows.

So far this morning, I've slept in and wasted the rest of the morning on the internet.

In a little while, I'll go lift again and then take the dogs for a walk. Pretty exciting!

And then, I'll probably pull out my guitar again and spend an hour or so wondering how long it will be before I can really play the thing. The really scary thought is how long it will take me before I "understand" the thing and I'm not simply trying to re-create sounds using a book with instructions for beginners. But, I'm committed to practicing the thing.

Oh yeah, my hamstring is still a tiny bit sore and the range of motion is restricted a bit. By restricted, I mean more than before the PRP treatment. I'm allowed to do some very light stretching and walking, so maybe that will help there. On Saturday, I'll be in PA visiting my sister and mom, and there is a very flat rail trail there where I'm planning my first post-PRP run.

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