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My Pop has been fighting kidney failure for four years.

He has been on dialysis and the hope was that he would get a kidney transplant. Those hopes are dashed with the wrecking ball force of pancreatic cancer. The cancer is spreading to the liver and gallbladder and damn near impossible to treat.

My heart is breaking into a million pieces.

With the recent discovery I began to break down. I was balling my eyes out as I drove my tank truck from Atlanta to Chattanooga for home time. I was taking the weekend off. Realizing I may have little time with him left, I rented a v8 Camaro SS, the fastest car on the airport lot, and drove from Chattanooga TN to Frederick MD all through the night, in record time. I made the 600 mile trip 10x faster in that Camaro than in my Scion xB. I cleaned out my truck cause I didn’t know when I’ll be back to work and Schneider might need the Freightliner.

My dad was super happy I came and he feels loved. He told me it wasn’t necessary but thanks to the advice of a dear nurse fiend I realized the imperativeness, and I made the trip. Dad was in better spirits when I showed up at the hospital so we were able to crack jokes while his bile dripped from his side into a gallon bag. We stayed up late playing cards and flirting with the nurses. He loved to tell them, “I have soiled my panties,” as he had been outfitted with a diaper of sorts. One nurse said,”you’re my favorite patient, I wish I could clone you”. Damn straight, my pop is the best. We need more people like him the world.

As some comedian said… “if I had known I’d live this long I would’ve taken better care of myself… ” and my father definitely could’ve had some healthier habits. But it was only self harm. He only brought joy to anyone who crosses his path. If he ever mistakenly hurt someone’s feelings he would feel awful about it and make sure the person knew he was sorry.

The nurses came in and out all night and we both woke up around 2am and watched Roy Clark play banjo on YouTube. I also showed him a silly robot chicken cartoon I thought he’d get a kick out of. I have slept on the couch all week, in his hospital room, as I don’t want to leave him. I have periods of being wracked with grief interspersed with joy from being around my father. He is starting hospice care soon. Last week I thought he had years. That has shortened months or possibly weeks

I am devastated

I was stoked that I parked my truck about a half mile from this kickass gym.

Bought a day pass and threw down.

Totally stoked they had an Olympic pad for some serious barbell action.

These are some of the excercises I did

• deadlifts
• cleans
• snatches
• overhead squats
• front squats
• sprinted on treadmill at maximum incline
• did a bunch of stretches and calisthenics
• lap[ swimming

Unfortunately I didn’t record the swimming because I didn’t want to get my phone wet. Lol

Glad to see I still have a sufficient amount of strength.  I worry sometimes that my new less active lifestyle will make me weaker.  I make a concerted effort to throw my kettlebells around that I keep in my truck.  I do plenty of yoga.  So I think i can maintain this level of strength.  Every once in a while I will deadlift 315lbs.  As long as I can still pull that a couple times i am happy.  i have no real reason to lift any heavier than that.  Also i do not necessarily want the bulk that comes with real heavy lifting.

I wrote and recorded all the music in the video. It is much more crunchy in the video then the recording available on iTunes I tweaked the levels to drown out the background noise of the gym and I actually kind of like the crunch and distortion for this video. But FYI The audio is much cleaner on iTunes. 🙂

I become one with my truck!

This is about a forty five minute yoga session crammed into thirty seconds.

It is a little tight in the truck but I like to imagine it as my Himalayan cave on wheels.  There is just enough room to have a decent round of yoga.  Although there is more room in an automatic I prefer the manual for driving.

However, the stick does goose me from time to time… lol

This is how I like to practice at the end of the day.  I drive for about 8-10 hours, shut her down, pop my brakes, close my shades, and I have perfect privacy.  It feels good to loosen up, after sitting still for so long.  I love the meditative aspect of truck driving, but after being in one position for so long it is great to move my body in many different ways.

Truck driving is good for the soul.

This particular hatha yoga practice is great for the body.

I want my body to work well because I intend to live a long time.  I have a lot of important things to accomplish on this earth.

My aspirations are important on an earthly level, but in the grand scheme of things… in this infinite universe… they may be rather insignificant.  I am but a grain of sand.

I am stuck right now

The snow gives me a chance to work on this here website

You can see the tracks in the snow…  That is where I tried to roll out at 6am to beat the blizzard…  but that did not happen.  I am loaded to 80K with a serious hazmat load and I got this frik frakkin tag axl  Most drivers agree that a tag has no business being this far north, but my manager doesn’t seem to understand that.  Ah, well…  It is only a matter of time until I have my own Peterbilt with power to both drive axles.