Clean and Jerk birthday goal

Last night I watched a show about human strength. I found myself fascinated with the clean and jerk. I’ve seen the feat performed a million times, but for some reason last night I thought to myself: “I’m gonna try that tomorrow at the gym.”

So today I tried it. I managed to lift about 105Ibs over my head. I decided to set a goal: I want to lift a little over my body weight by my birthday, which is May 24. I weigh about 130-135Ibs.

My workouts have always been geared towards the aesthetic, but now I’m going to start throwing in some sheer strength building too. Once I can heave my bodyweight over my head, I’ll have somebody take a picture of me and I’ll post it to prove it!

First week of the new job

The first week at my new job has exceeded my expectations in terms of how quickly I’m adapting to the place. My first story—an obituary plus—was good enough that they decided to put in on the front page. Here is a link to the West Bend Daily News, although the headlines change daily.

The paper had already done a story on the said deceased guy a year ago, and so I was under pressure to “find something new” about him. I did. The next day the editor-in-chief stopped by my desk and said, “Congratulations—your first story made the front page.”

But I was still a bit nervous about how my next stories would be accepted. I finished two yesterday; the second story was about an Olympic official (and I can see by the headlines that it too made the front page), and the third was about NASCAR, of which I knew nothing about.

Again, the EIC came up to me after looking over my work and basically said, “Good job.” The edits were extremely minor; I could barely tell the piece was edited. That was a load off my shoulders. The second-in-command—Dan—edited my third piece and again, hardly any edits needed to be made.

I had to work a little this morning, taking pictures and getting quotes, but they told me I could write the rest of the article from home. I’ve already written most of it, although I have yet to download the pictures. And speaking of pictures, I’ve already learned a lot more about Adobe Photoshop. Whenever I have spare time, I plan on having Dan teach me Quark, which is a really good program to know for anybody interested in journalism and public relations.

This job will turn out to be a great boost for my career, whatever I decide to do.

This week's column

Here is a link to this week's column, called Abuse of Language.

I'd love to blog more, but I've been really busy lately. Hopefully this weekend I'll have time.

Update:

Here is a link to another version of the above column, published in the Wisconisn Jewish Chronicle. I have been told I will be paid for the piece. I like to get paid for giving my opinion!

Long day

My first day of work went fine. People seem nice and it seems like a fairly laid back place to work. I've already been given a number of story assignments, and it's nothing I can't handle. The drive doesn't even seem that bad, although it's not that great either. I'll write more later. Right now I'm tired and want to veg-out and watch TV.

First day of work-- again

The sun is shining, and that should make for a nice commute for my second first day of work. I'm excited and looking forward to learning more about how this paper is run and what, exactly, my job will consist of. I mean, I have a general idea, but there are still many questions ...

I plan on going to the gym directly after work. I'll get back to y'all later.

Have a nice day.

Respekt!

A Million Voices for Darfur

Sign the petition and help end the genocide in Darfur.

Rubin agrees with Zakstradamus

In his most recent column, Barry Rubin wrote the following:

Prediction: a shadowy Islamist group which consists of Hamas people, but lets Hamas deny responsibility, will emerge to claim "credit" for attacking Israel.

I predicted something like this not too long ago in my post Zakstradamus predicts the future:

[T]he State Department and the EU[will] begin talking with “moderate” representatives of Hamas’ “political” leadership, what we will see is a replay of the Oslo years in the 1990’s.That means the “political” echelon negotiating with Israel will say the right things to the west, and meanwhile their military wing, the Izzadin al-Kassem—which they’ll say they have little control over—will continue to murder in conjunction with the political echelon’s negotiations.

Winery story

Here is a link to the story I wrote on a local winery. I also wrote the side bar about the tour. Good for me.

Career Counselor meeting

Today I met with my career counselor. It was a great meeting. She grilled me about me so as to improve my resume. It’s nice to know that I’ll be getting a top-notch resume geared towards PR. Sure, it’s costing me a pretty penny, but if I end up getting a nice job out of this, then it will be worth every cent. Later tonight I plan on re-doing my web profile (web page, but apparently in industry parlance it’s a “web profile”). My career counselor geared me towards a helpful website that will give me ideas on how to make my web profile look more professional. I’m hoping it won’t take too long.

I’ve also transferred all of my data from my old computer to the new one. Man, I really love this new laptop. It’s beautiful.

Muslim Gang Kidnaps and Murders Jewish Man in Paris Suburb

This is absolutely horrific. Hat tip to Charles Johnson at LGF, as usual.

Link to articles about the story