Scatter Splatter - Blog

Two Squats At 265 Pounds Felt Great Early This Morning

2026-06-18T00:00:00+00:00

Last night, I did not sleep all that great. It was hot in here, but not hot enough to go in the attic and get the air conditioner and put it in. I did bring it down into the bedroom after doing my squats. It wasn’t hot, really. Just uncomfortable to me. This was the first warm night of the spring, so that is a factor. Once it cooled off outside, the fan helped.

With the incoming heat this afternoon, in the middle 90s, I wanted to get my squats in before it warmed up too much. We don’t have the air conditioner in the garage yet. It was more humid than it has been, but not too bad.

I started with the empty bar and took my time working through the warm-up sets. My foot had been bothering me over the weekend, so I wanted to make sure that it felt okay as I worked up in weights. The lighter sets all felt great. Even the working sets felt pretty good too. My foot wasn’t giving me an issue at all.

The final AMRAP set called for 1+ reps at 265 pounds. I have said it in the past, but this is always a special number to me. That had been my ugly max in at the old Crossfit gym. Anytime I make that weight, it’s special to me. I wasn’t sure how it would feel right now, as I haven’t really squatted heavy in half a year.

The first one felt great. Of course it felt heavy, especially on my shoulders, but it has been a while since I was under significant weight. I went for a second rep just for good measure, and that felt perfect too. They looked great in the quick recording I took with my phone too. Something has changed a bit with the way the mechanics feel, but it feels like a good thing for me.

I was happy with how they felt. It is just so good to me and makes me feel even happier to be getting under a bar again. I had missed that a lot, but there was too much going on to focus, and I didn’t want any false starts.

I wound up never doing a WOD on this day. I waited around too long, and it got too hot. One day won’t kill me. I did get some time out on the patio getting some nice hot sunshine on me. That felt good, and it was nice to relax before having to do some annoying things later in the day.

Music today was Candlemass

Nice Day To Eat Outside At Harvey's

2026-05-16T00:00:00+00:00

Today was an extremely nice day. It was a chilly start, but the temperature rose quickly enough. We got some things done around the yard that we have been meaning to do.

The humidity stayed low, making it an extra pleasant day with bright sunshine and a nice breeze.

Later in the afternoon we decided to walk over to Harvey’s BBQ for supper. We go there a lot because we like it. They have beer for me, and drinks that my girlfriend likes too!

As we were walking up, we noticed quite a few people eating outside, so we decided that sounded like a good plan. They have some areas with some tables out in the backyard. It’s more like a backyard setup than the normal deck or patio. It is nice and peaceful outside.

That hit different today being outside smelling the smoker while we were eating. Drinking a beer with the hot sun on my back felt great too. As I say a lot find the things you enjoy and do them when possible.

Food Outside At Harvey's

Used 50s For Clusters In A WOD

2026-05-13T18:00:00+00:00

Later on this afternoon I was feeling pretty good. I was thinking of doing a WOD and finally decided to get off my ass and do one.

I didn’t want something long and complicated today. Instead, what I wanted to find was something fairly quick. Another idea I had in my mind was that I wanted to do something heavier.

This morning I saw the 50-pound dumbbells when I moved the rower against them to do my deadlifts. The sun was shining on them, and they were begging for me to pick them up and use them. It has been a few weeks, I think, and I have been wanting to ramp up the weights in WODS.

I found an older death by WOD. It called for death by clusters. That is a clean into a thruster. I cut the WOD shorter than I had to because I started coughing and didn’t want to go to failure with the heavier weight than I am used to, but I did certainly have more in the tank. I am pretty confident I could have made the goal reps. That’s not too shabby considering I haven’t touched this weight in WOD besides snatches in quite a while.

It was a good, simple WOD that got my heart rate up a good bit but got me out of my comfort zone. The weight was uncomfortable but manageable. These death-by-workouts are great for when you want to use a heavier weight than you are used to using. The cleans and squats felt good, and so did the push press portion of the thrusters. It was exactly what I wanted to get out of a WOD today.

Normally I don’t like to get my WODs in this late in the day unless I am doing a second one, but today I have been a little lazy. My side was twitching a bit too, so I wanted to see if that settled. It did some, so I got the workout in.

Music for the WOD was Suffocation.

Lifting Still Feeling Good This Week

2026-05-13T11:00:00+00:00

I have continued with my 5/3/1 this week. It’s the second week in this first rather light cycle, but it is still feeling pretty good.

On Monday I got in my squats. That day I was feeling tired and run down, but I still was able to get my reps in with the bar. I took my time working up through the weights but enjoyed myself in the process. I love squatting! The final set, well, even the one before that felt a bit heavier than it should have, but I still got it done. The 3 reps at 250 pounds felt pretty good. I felt like I was moving well too. I certainly had more in the tank but stopped at the programmed reps for that AMRAP. The intensity will come in time.

I wound up not doing a WOD that day. I just forgot, and time got away from me.

Yesterday I did my bench press bright and early in the morning. While they felt heavy, they felt pretty easy. Since they felt good, I knocked out a few more reps than the programmed minimum at 165 pounds.

I did manage to have a 35-pound plate fall over, and the edge caught me in the shin. That was the perfect distance to hit my leg with the maximum impact. That did not feel good at all. Fortunately I was able to walk it off and was fine after a few minutes. It did leave a hole in my skin.

That gave me strong flashbacks of the missed 30-inch box jump many years ago in the CrossFit gym. That left a dent in my leg for at least a year. At least this wasn’t as bad. Never a dull moment with my accident-prone self, though.

For a WOD I went a little lighter and less intense because my side felt a bit angry. Also, my leg was pretty sore. It was fine, but the residual anger is there. I think I bruised it but I rarely have visible bruises, so who knows?

This morning I was feeling pretty good, so I decided to knock out my deadlifts for this week. A better way of putting it is I guess I wanted to give them a shot and see how they felt with my leg. That still feels angry. The lighter weights of the deadlifts felt great, though, so I continued along with my programmed sets. I intended to stop at the programmed minimum reps in the AMRAP and that is what I did. I got a relatively easy 3 reps at 245 pounds.

I was glad that my leg was fine because the lifting is what gets me in a good mental state more than anything. I have been in a funk lately, so I need that to get my head straight. Most springs I get in this funk. This year it’s hitting a bit harder than usual. I will be fine in the end.

I have not done a WOD yet, but I am hoping to get one in a bit later. I am tired, and I will try to take a catnap first.

Pretty Good Week Lifting

2026-05-10T00:00:00+00:00

I posted about it earlier in the week, but I have gotten back on the wagon with my strength work. For this first cycle I took all of my lifts way lighter than I needed to, but that is just my common-sense kicking in. I’d rather go lighter now and keep moving up than get frustrated or, worse yet, get myself injured because I jumped into things too quickly.

All my lifts felt great. Even the presses and bench press. Both are my weaknesses, and I’m not really concerned with how much I can bench. That is the least important to me, but I do still do it.

Late last week I heard from an old friend. That was nice. He had done a lot of powerlifting when he was younger, and he said he regrets it. He said Crossfit is the right thing to do. While I don’t go to a Crossfit gym anymore, I think despite my complaining, street parking takes some of the good from that type of training. I just wish they’d stop with the stupid WODs.

It was nice to get some outside confirmation about what I am doing and that I take a practical approach to my fitness and lifting. I wish Crossfit had been around when I was younger, but it wasn’t. Time can’t be turned back. I have been at it for well over a decade, so that is pretty good.

I have been hitting a lot of the WODs harder and using heavier weights too. I did two workouts yesterday. Both are using the 40-pound dumbbells. The one I did alternating hang snatches with one. They always feel great. The second one was strict presses with the 40-pound dumbbells. Those sets, while small, were all unbroken. This WOD I felt great about.

Even before I knew my sister was my sister, she’s been a big motivator for doing what I do. We do different things, but we do what we do for similar reasons. She has said that she runs for her life. That always stuck with me.

Yesterday’s big motivator was seeing a video of my brother and his niece working out together at some group training thing they do. It makes me so happy to see that he is doing that. He is much stronger than me.

I hope I can continue doing both the lifting and metcons as long as I can. Ideally I can keep doing both until the day I die. Of course the weights and intensity will drop off as I get older, but it is all relative.

My point is it felt great to get back under the bar. I am forever grateful to have the opportunity to learn it and do it before it was too late in life. It is something I wanted to do since I was a child, but back then the means weren’t there. I didn’t have access to the equipment for one. Just the learning wasn’t available either.

She runs for her life. I lift for mine.

Great To Be Back To My Lifting

2026-05-07T00:00:00+00:00

I know it has been a while, and when I am lifting, I post about it a lot. I do that because I enjoy lifting.

After about half a year off, I feel like I am finally getting my consistency back with it. I really have missed it, but life has been so hectic I just didn’t have the focus.

I did my squats two days ago, and that was nice. Yesterday I got my bench press in, and those felt better than they have in a long time. Yes, the weight was light, but that is just a lift I am really not into. Today I did my deadlifts, and those felt outstanding.

The deadlifts this morning felt like I had good form. I was really focusing on that, but then again, I do focus on technique ninety-nine percent of the time.

I took my good old-time working through the warm-up set and the working sets.

One thing I have to admit though is I did the math wrong at one point for one of the middle sets. I caught it before I did the lifts but went and put the 15-pound plates on instead of the 25-pound ones. I don’t know really how that happened apart from just going by memory. Typically I don’t even really have to think about adding up the weight that I am supposed to use. I guess it has been long enough that my brain is a little rusty. I caught it just before doing the 5 reps at 145 pounds instead of 165. It would have felt too easy and thrown me off.

It is not uncommon for me to round up or down a bit with my working sets and while warming up. I do that to keep the number cleaner so I don’t have to mess with the change plates or pulling plates off to switch them. I glance at the programmed weights and figure out in my head the best way to minimize switching.

All this time I have been definitely doing WODs and a lot of the times I have been bumping the weights or speed. That felt pretty good to me, but lifting is my big motivator. Lifting heavy is what makes me feel good and want to push myself. Of course I am not lifting heavy this first cycle, but in time that will come. Even the moderately weighted sets feel oh so rewarding to me. I feel like a big part of it is that the lifting takes my poor eyesight out of the equation mostly. It is just me versus gravity and my own mental toughness. Lifting really calms my chaotic thoughts.

Music was Illogicist.

First Time Doing 5/3/1 Squats In A Half A Year

2026-05-05T00:00:00+00:00

I took a break from my strength last December when my sister was visiting. I wanted to max out after that, but then one thing led to another, and I did not do that. The intention was there to restart it in January to get a benchmark, but my mind wasn’t into it with planning our trip to see her.

I had every intention of getting back to lifting after that trip, but as I have mentioned here and there this year, shit has hit the fan in multiple ways and over and over. That trip was significant to me and took priority in my head over everything else.

I woke up this morning tired because I was up late watching the Flyers heartbreaking loss in overtime last night. My head is very stuffy like it gets this time of the year, but I decided enough is enough. Today is the day I get back under the bar for some moderately heavy squats. Fuck anything else that might interfere.

While browsing on my tablet, I started really thinking about how I was going to approach this after such a long hiatus. It did not feel like a good idea to get a heavy single. I ended up deciding I would try to guess a training max for this cycle that would give me challenging but doable weights each week.

The bar felt heavier than the weight normally would, but I would have been confused if it didn’t. I have not really been doing much back squatting. Just a few times in WODs, and that was at a fairly light weight.

I took my time slowly working my way up through the programmed sets. Paying very close attention to how my body felt during and after the sets. I know my squats lately with the dumbbell have been slightly different mechanically, and that continued with this. They felt good, though.

The final set called for 5+ reps at 240 pounds. I stopped at 5. That was my plan, though. No matter how great it might feel, I am stopping at the minimum this cycle just to get some reps in. They felt heavy but great. Mechanics felt spot-on too. I wanted to video that set but completely forgot to set up my phone. I was happy with the squats and how they felt during and after. Let’s see how tired my legs are later.

Now hopefully I can stick to this first cycle with consistency. Now. The hardest part is just getting started. I don’t know what life will throw at me next. I hope that it isn’t too disruptive for me to do my strength.

I did miss lifting, but I didn’t feel I had the right focus to do it safely. It has been stated a million times in the past, and it is still true. I am not doing this to get hurt. It is good for me physically and especially mentally. Heavy sets really calm my brain noise. It brings me a deep inner peace, which is something I have struggled with my whole life. The physical benefits are a nice secondary bonus.

Later this morning I decided that I wanted to get a short but intense WOD in. They had one from a while back that was rounds of 8 hang power snatches and 8 back squats with the bar. I chose to go with the empty barbell since I haven’t done snatches much recently, and I did those heavier back squats this morning. The light weight would allow me to hit it like a sprint, and that is what I did. It really spiked the heart rate and got me breathing. It felt great! I knocked off a good minute from my score the last time I did it and felt like I held back some today. It felt great to hit a WOD so hard today.

Music for the lifting and the WOD was Illogicist.

Got Plenty Of Sunshine On The Patio

2026-05-04T18:00:00+00:00

Today has been an extremely nice weather day. It started off chilly with a low in the upper 30s, but it warmed up nicely this morning.

I even thought about bringing the D-ball outside this afternoon or taking the sled out. My stomach has been feeling a little off, though, so I wound up just sitting on the chair with my feet up. I did do a WOD in the garage early this morning, but I want to bump the intensity. There is time for that later.

Earlier this afternoon when I was out there before my girlfriend got home, the breeze had a bit of a chill to it. It was in the upper 60s by then.

By the time she got home, it was in the lower to middle 70s and felt great outside. I went out with her for a while and enjoyed the hot sun on me. I can’t say it enough times, but what a wonderful mood booster it is. The breeze felt perfect, and hearing the outside sounds like the birds and stuff was even better.

The weather couldn’t be more perfect for it. No real humidity and the nice breeze and clear skies with a few cumulus clouds moving through. It would have been a great day at the mountains.

It was just what the doctor ordered, with my stomach feeling a bit off. It helps a lot with my mental funk that I have been in too. Spring always brings up plenty of messy thoughts for me.

Now I will Notice Small Bugs In My Templates

2026-05-04T12:00:00+00:00

Last week I switched this site over to the new version of Zola since I had gotten all my templates working as I wanted them to work. Of course I knew there would be things that I had overlooked while doing that.

As I notice these things, I have been fixing them. There have been a few typos in the text that I either corrected or wanted to change to make things a little clearer. I did some of that this morning while drinking my coffee.

I also noticed a glitch with the weather times on my weather pages. In the past, the date format that Ambient Weather gave for the times worked out of the box. That isn’t the case with the new version of Tera. The dumb part is I knew that and fixed it in some places but forgot to check my components. I fixed it easily enough this morning once I noticed that the times for today were in the future. Now it takes the timezone offsets again, so it is right.

Proofreading has never been a strong area for me. My partially educated theory is because of my poor vision, my brain has just learned to fill in a lot of what it expects to see to make things go a little faster. When I write stuff, it seems even worse than when others do. I guess because the brain knows what it wanted to be there. I simply do not even see a typo even after it has been pointed out many times.

It is not as much of a problem with math, where I guess I pay more attention, but with text it happens often.

Way back in the school days, it used to be really problematic when teachers forced stuff to be in handwriting. I struggle to read my own or anyone else’s, for that matter. At home for doing stuff, lighting was poor at best, not to mention all the distractions that I won’t get into in this post. That is a completely separate topic.

Either way it was a quick fix to get my dates formatted correctly for the program to understand it.

{%- set T = T | replace(from="-05:00", to="[-05:00]") | replace(from="-04:00", to="[-04:00]") -%}```

This is the kind of thing I enjoy. I like finding and solving problems. It is also why I appreciate the fact that this website is just a hobby. I don't have to sweat this kind of stuff. Now that I think of it, I think I remember seeing that there is a regex replace. I swear I remember using it for something in the past. I will have to look into that. It would make this more of  a one-liner.

I did take a quick glance at the documentation and didn't see anything for regex. Maybe I am thinking of Hugo?

Can't Wait To Watch The Flyers In Round Two

2026-05-02T00:00:00+00:00

I can’t wait to watch the Flyers game tonight! They are in the second round of the playoffs. This team is pretty fun to watch. They are young and fast, and I think hungry to win.

I have always loved hockey. It was on TV a lot when I was very young. My dad, who we now know really isn’t, always watched the Flyers. My one brother is named after a player, actually.

I fully expect that the Flyers will get eliminated this round. I am so happy that Crosby the crybaby and the dirty Penguins got knocked out in the first round. Even happier that the Flyers did it.

I would have less of a problem with Crosby if he didn’t get special treatment. There have been some times he drew a penalty for diving when no one even touched him.

It is nice that the Phillies game isn’t on a the same time as the Flyers game today. The Phils have been fun to watch the last several days too.

Hockey games on the TV though were a staple of my childhood. Sometimes I regret not taking my dad up on the offer to go to a game with me when he would ask. He got tickets from his work sometimes. Him and my youngest brother seemed close so they went often. As much as I wanted to go I thought it was good for them to have that time.

This run the Flyers have been on has been fun to watch. It was especially nice given the team has been in the dumps for so long.