Technology, Making your life easier, except when it doesn't - GET OFF THE GRID!

I was riding on a night train from Bangkok to Surat Thani. I was trying to sleep. It wasn't happening. The people in the compartment next to mine kept making noise. They kept getting louder and louder. Having a grand time.

It was really starting to irritate me. The train was bouncing back and forth.

Then the old adage came to mind: If you can't beat them, join them.

I went over to the compartment next time mine and knocked on the door.

"It sounds like you guys are having a blast, mind if I partake in a drink?" I say

They introduced me to Sangsom and Thai Redbull. A deadly concoction of all that is bad in this world and a hell of a lot of fun. Piss and vinegar, put hair on your chest, and vomit for a weeks, all come to mind.

He have a few drinks and persist with some small talk.

Then we started having the weirdest conversations. That whole what do you do thing. They were a married couple, the wife was a Time Magazine photographer and the husband was a jade smuggling "jewel thief" with strange ties to the Junta in Burma. Not your typical backpackers.

"Don't go to Koh Samui, that's stupid. Just a bunch of hippie backpacker tourist wanna bees. You should cross into Burma and see if you can buy a General a Beer. You will see a country almost devoid of tourism, where you are an oddity. Not the norm. You would have a much better time. Or go scuba diving with Whale Sharks on Koh Tao instead. You can do that you know. They have a migration in January.

You know the problem with Americans is they think they are entitled to something, they always think they deserve this or that. The rest of the world doesn't think that way, you know that right? The rest of the world works for almost nothing and are happy just to have food on the table. The rest of the world is excited by the privilege of going to school. Just the thought of education.

In Shanghai it was all bicycles and markets, looked like it did for hundreds of years and within 20 years the Chinese have built the largest cities in the world and they own us. They own us! Don't YOU REALIZE that THEY OWN US!?? Get off the grid, kid. Get rid of your cell phone, it's a trap. They are going to know how to find you. It's not always going to be adjustable rate mortgages and all that shit. GET OFF THE GRID!!" says the Husband

His speech became faster and faster with more and more enthusiasm. I would find out later this was a conversation typical of Sangsom and Thai Redbull.

"I think your scaring our new friend!" Says the Wife. She starts laughing

I have the bewildered look of a deer in the headlights.

"Treat the locals with respect and you will go far" Says the Husband.

Just as he says this the Thai Train attendant comes into the car and we buy her drinks. More train attendants show up until it's really a whole party of Thai Train attendants and the Americans traveling on a night train to who knows where.

Now I'm not saying you should take it to the extreme that the Jade Smuggler was talking about.

What I am saying is that technology can be a blessing and it can be a curse. Use it, but don't let it use you.

Technology is a double edged sword.

Take the the Internet as an example. I love the Internet. It's great. You can get whatever information you want, whenever you want. All the worlds tomes of knowledge are at your finger tips. At the same time it can be a huge time suck, and it might be giving people ADD. How long do you spend on your facebook profile? How often do I check CNN? I actually just figured out how to block websites I waste time on. No more CNN for me..

Yes you are not connected... but there is a kind of freedom that I can't explain to anyone who carries a mobile phone. In a way it's just a digital ball and chain. You are expected to answer every call, every email, every text message. Immediately. That's the world. People want it, and they want it now. No time to waste.

That's why disconnecting yourself from the matrix can be oh so enlightening. When I travel, I won't check email for weeks or months at a time. It's a amazing. Try it out on your next trip.

Even just a day of freedom from our digital world can be nice.

Strength Training - Learn How to Deadlift 780 Pounds

I first dabbled in weight training when I turned 21. I decided it would be a great idea to become a huge Motha #$##$... (Those were my own words at the time.) I bought a bench press and a friend who had just gotten married gave me his whole gym because he didn't have room anymore. I put it in the basement of the house I was renting.

At the time I was not a big fan of gyms. I don't know why but something just bothered me about them. Now I had no excuse I had a whole weight set right in my basement.

I read the Arnold Schwarzenegger Encyclopedia of Modern Body Building. If you get a chance, check this book out. It's pretty hilarious to hear what the now governor of California had to say about steroid use.

I decided I would train my muscles to failure to build up a ton of mass. Arnold recommends doing 5 sets.

Set 1 (Warm Up) - 15 Reps

Set 2 - 10 Reps

Set 3 - 8 Reps

Set 4 - 5 Reps

Set 5 - 5 Reps

You start at a low weight and up the weight every set, except for the last one. The idea is to train the muscle group to failure. By the end of the routine you really do feel "ripped" your muscles are torn, and you are sore for days. You do get a big endorphin rush similar to a runners high. You do this routine for a different group of muscles every day, so you are giving the muscles time to recover before training them again.

I have to hand it to Arnold, if you want to be a huge meat head this works great.

At the time I went from 180 pounds to 205 pounds. It was nuts. I also did almost zero cardiovascular training.

Right after this I sold all my belongings, stopped renting the house with the basement, quit my job, got rid of most of my belongings and took a 2 month trip through Thailand. Bye bye home gym. (The gym currently resides at my sisters house, She just ran a Triathlon!)

When I got back I had no where to put my gym. I ended up getting a corporate job and I stopped exercising regularly. I did get a gym membership, but for some reason I just didn't go enough. It wasn't as easy as having the home gym.

Here is the interesting thing about muscle: If you don't use it, you loose it. You don't loose the mass though, it just turns into fat. That's why there are those really horrible tabloid pictures of Arnold after he stopped working out. He had all this mass, but wasn't using it anymore.

Once all the muscle turned to fat I was pissed. Here I put on all this extra weight for what? It wasn't functional. Although it was fun being giant for a while. Arnold got up to 240? Could you imagine? 240 of all muscle.

It took me a couple of years to start exercising again.

Last year when I took up practicing Muay Thai regularly I started doing a ton of cardiovascular exercise, and some strength conditioning. The goal was never to build lots of mass. For the past year the majority of my work out have been primarily cardiovascular. When you do cardio, the weight just falls off, it's like the opposite of weight training. I dropped down to 170.

I am fortunate enough that my current Muay Thai Gym in Oakland has a full weight room. It's great to get back to pumping iron.

This time around, I'm taking a different approach. The goal isn't to be a huge meat head. The goal is to be strong. I don't care about being huge, just strong. I also wanted to find a balance between strength training and cardio.

I started a weight training program, specifically a strength training program last week. It's only week two but I feel like I've been making a ton of progress.

Here is the program I am following specifically. I found out about it through Tim Ferris' blog. A

The guy that invented this program could dead lift 780 lbs at 165 lbs body weight. Now we're talking! An insane amount of strength and you can still fit through the door.

If you are too lazy to read the post I'll break it down for you here. This routine is still five sets but it is not training muscles to failure. Unlike Arnold's work out, you keep the weight the same for each set and you do the same amount of reps. Always make sure you can complete the set.

Set 1 - 5 Reps

Set 2 - 5 Reps

Set 3 - 5 Reps

Set 4 - 5 Reps

Set 5 - 5 Reps

Here is the schedule I'm following:

Monday - Heavy Bench Press

Tuesday - Heavy Squat

Wednesday - Dead Lift

Thursday - Light Bench Press

Friday - Light Squat

The light days are 80% of the weight of the heavy days. Instead of 5 reps, you do 4 reps for each set.

There are also ways to do this, if you can only make it into the gym three or four days a week, they outline them in the post.

Here is the link to that post again. I recommend reading it if you are planning on doing some strength training and want to get into power lifting.

I also do an hour or so of Muay Thai right afterward. They don't recommend doing anything extra in the post but I would recommend getting in cardiovascular of some shape or form.

That is of course unless you want to be a huge motha #(@#(@*. Then you should just watch this movie. Ridiculous right? "Get to the chopppaaa."

Earthquake in Indonesia - Help Needed

I have a very wonderful cousin who moved his family to Indonesia to teach. He writes about his experiences there < http://welcome2ourjungle.blogspot.com/ >

Indonesia has recently experienced a very bad earthquake. In their most recent blog post they details ways that you can help with the relief effort.

Here a few ways they mention that you can help out:

• If you know of a school or organization that would be willing (or maybe needs a push) to take up the financial cause for this relief effort please see if they would be willing to help.
• Donate - www.worldvision.org

There are many ways to help. If you don't have much money, spread the word. See if your friends and family can help.

Age is just a number

I turn 25 years old tomorrow. Wow a quarter of a century. Amazing. The rental car benefits are just starting to sink in. Oh yes, I will be renting a different car every day. The insurance premiums are going to go down.

Some people fear getting older. Not me. It's part of life. You can't go backwards unless you are Benjamin Button.

I'll see if I say the same thing when I turn 40 or 50...

Health is your Wealth

One of my good Australian friends once told me: "Your health, is your wealth"

Last week I caught a cold and got really sick. That kind of sickness where you start sweating even when the air is cold and your brain starts playing tricks on you because you have a fever. You feel miserable and contemplate the meaning of suffering. You try Taoist meditation to try to combat the waves of nausea. You drink ginger tea, and try herbal medicine to try to stop the spread. You drink unheard of, possibly unhealthy, quantities of orange juice.. All to no avail. None of it helps. No relief

Your still sick, you still feel horrible, and you can not do a damn thing to change it but to wait it out, rest and drink lots of fluids. Dr's Orders. Then the next week your vegan girlfriend is tricked into eating pills from Whole Foods that contain duck liver, the healing properties of such are well know only to french diplomats in certain corners of the world, they whisper... "Duck liver, send more duck liver"

The point of this rambling description of the past week is to instill a point. Your health, really is your wealth. I would rather have no money and be healthy than have a million dollars and a strange illness.

This brings me to health care reform. There are a lot of rumblings and grumblings across the country about health care reform to the point that it's almost making me ill again.

The advantages of preventative measures are the most important step you can take. It's very simple, eat fruits and vegetables and have a healthy diet, exercise 5 times a week, don't smoke or binge drink.

That's it. If you do those things your more likely to live a lot longer than someone who eats massive quantities of fast foods, chain smokes, and binge drinks, while removing asbestos from their house and juggling chainsaws.

That is what will bring health care costs down the most, if people took care of themselves.

Remember your Health is your Wealth.

What do you think the solution is to the nations health care debacle?