It is hard to believe I am back here, sitting at a desk, on a chair, under an air conditioner. The last 16 days flew by. We arrived here at the YWAM base in Bankok at approximately 7:30 am, after driving all night on the fancy bus, and even though I slept on the bus, Linnea and I immediately fell asleep here in our comfortable room and slept for 5 hours. We then ate at KFC and I headed to the internet.
I hate to be rushed, and for the past 2 weeks our whirlwind schedule has caused me to get a little distracted from blogging or even answering many emails. We would hit an internet spot and have an hour…that is hardly enough time for me to settle in and get focused. So, today I decided to get back to work in the comfortable leather chairs and high speed internet that we have a five minute walk from here.
I walked into the cafe that I used for the 10 days at the beginning of the month, only to find out they were full. Every internet place I went into was full. People fall asleep in front of the monitors and take a nap…a short break from the hard work they put into this gaming community. There are two games that all the guys here play. I don’t know the name of the games, but one has a guy killing animals and dragons with a sword and the other that is especially important is a dance game. I don’t really get it, but there are a bunch of cartoon/anime looking girls on screen, and I guess the player controls one of them while he/she learns new dance moves. If I caught a buddy of mine playing this game, I would never let him live it down…but I guess that is what the guys here do.
So I walked back to this room and am now sitting here trying to type as Linnea asks me which niece should receive which color gift she bought last night. I might as well go play that dance game, I guess. I would probably be just as good at that as I am at shopping and choosing gifts for girls.
We had all day to kill yesterday in Chiang Mai, so we headed to the gym. We spent 50 baht, or $1.50 American for a workout. This is the first time I have been in a gym in almost 8 whole months, and it felt great. I may not have felt in peak form, but to be in a gym with the music blasting and the energy and real weights just felt great. There is just something that feels good to me about lifting heavy weights, I love the feel of the bar in my hands, maybe it is the testosterone rush or the endorphins, but lifting just puts me in a great mood. This gym was not a Powerhouse or Gold’s, but with my conditioning, it did not matter. The heaviest dumbells were 50 pounds, and that was enough to get some work done. Rusty, Josh, and I worked out together, and Linnea did a workout on her own, and I was really proud of how hard she worked.
I am not the most disciplined person in the world, and as much as I love working out, it has been really difficult to find the motivation to keep any type of a fitness routine out here. It is difficult to control what I eat, and often the easiest thing to do is to grab a bag of chips or pack of cookies. At home, I never drink sodas or pops or whatever you want to call them, but out here it is just what I drink, and when I stepped on the scale at the gym, the needle stopped at 240 pounds, and I felt really good about myself (sarcasm). Three and a half years ago, I competed in the Xtreme Strongman Showdown, at 225 pounds. That feels like 3 lifetimes ago, and I miss how I felt then. I think other than Sequoia, what I look forward to the most about returning home in 86 days (but who is counting?) is trying to get back into some type of routine for a little while…easy to do just in time for the holidays, huh?
