Shower Issues, Family Time and Agents of Shield

After a great workout at NerdStrong Gym I look forward to coming home and having a nice long shower. Well today, fate had a different plan for me. As I started the water all was well, when I went to pull up on the "thingy" that makes the tub spout stop and the shower start the entire tub facet broke off and water jetted out at full speed.

At first I though it was just the adhesive coming off but as I took a closer look, I noticed a large amount of rust and it looks as though the actual pipe was just eaten away and finally snapped. The only way that they are going to be able to fix this is to pull out my tub/shower completely and put in some new pipes. Yeah I'm not looking forward to this disruption in my life at the moment. So I'm not going to tell my building manager just yet about this issue. There is no water leaking anywhere and I have a second bathroom with a shower so there is no issue there. I think I'll just keep mum for the time being.

Heading out to see family today. It's been over a month and I usual like to see them every few weeks. I did see my brother and his family last weekend at Celebration but it's been far too long since I've seen my dad. So I headed over after my shower fiasco and arrived around 1:30ish. I hung out with the kiddos for a few minutes while dad got ready. We were going to out to lunch and shopping afterwards. I had planned to come back and hang out with the kids for a few more hours but when dad and I got back from lunch/shopping I remembered that Mike and his family had plans at 4 and it was now 4:30 so they had gone. Dad was tired so we called it a day and I headed back home.

Once home I cleaned up my house a bit as I have been letting it get a little to messy and I have several friends coming over to my place tomorrow who had never been here before.. so it has to look nice.

In the evening I watched some TV with my buddy Erik via Skype. He and I watch quite a bit of TV together and since I had been busy the week prior with Celebration and he was busy this week with a conference in Vegas neither of us had been watching much of our TV shows so we were behind. We had a few hours before bed time so we opted to watch the latest two episodes of Agents of Shield.

First up was S2 Ep17 "Melinda" The story of Melinda May's transformation into "The Cavalry" is revealed as she finds herself at a crossroads in the war between Coulson and Gonzales. As Skye learns more about her true heritage from Lincoln, the truth about Inhumans will send her in a new direction.

So we have heard about "The Cavalry" for over a season and a half and we finally get the story behind the name and boy is it a story. We see a whole new side to Agent May, she's still a great agent but she married, planning a family and is happy.  It was interesting to see what actually made her the way she is now and I actually understand it. I still think that she's didn't have much a choice and had to do what she did to survive, but it changed for forever. I like how her story connected with the inhuman story and speaking of inhumans I was so happy that Skye found out the woman running the place was her mom. That's one great thing about this season of Shield.. secrets aren't kept very long. Nothing is really draw out for to long and this was one of those things that I didn't want to see drawn out forever. I like that we finally get a hint at what Raina's "power" is, can't wait to see more and it was nice to see the papa Cal, though crazy, he really just wanted his family back.

And then we watched S2 Ep18 "The Frenemy of My Enemy"A dangerous new alliance is formed as Coulson and Hunter turn to the last person anyone would expect, Grant Ward! As the war between S.H.I.E.L.D. factions continues, Skye and Lincoln will find themselves drawn into this conflict.

So I wasn't a fan of Ward in season one and I'm happy to say I'm still not a fan. I understand why Coulson had to teamed up with him but still I hope this alliance doesn't last to long. I really liked all the Fitts and Hunter interaction. I'm glad to see that Fitts is doing better, mentally. I'm glad Simmons finally confessed to May that Fitts had the box and that May isn't 100% on the side of the "new" Shield and throw Fitt's under the bus instead of Simmons which she revealed this secret to everyone. I really like Deathlock and glad to see him part of the group.. hopefully he'll stick around for a while. And I like that they have combined Skye's storyline with Coulson, though only temporarily.

Overall two really good episodes, I think I liked the first one better as May is a favorite of mine and it was nice seeing her backstory. I'm not a fan that she's kind of questioning Coulson and his actions but I'm sure all will be resolved in the next few episodes.

Erik and I still have some Flash, Gotham, Arrow and a few other shows to catch up on... so more reviews to come.

NerdStrong Gym - Gotta Love Wall Balls & Burpees

Today's workout is a tough one, but I've come to expect tough workouts on Saturday and it is a "Con" day and that means constant workout.

We started with a good stretch before moving on to the main workout. It was a 4x4 AMRAP (As many reps as possible). Coach Andrew said most folks were doing 2 reps per four minutes.

This workout was broken down into 4 segments each lasting 4 minutes with a much needed 3 minute break in between.

We started with 15x Box Jumps, 10x Wall Balls and 5x Burpees. None of these were too taxing as it was just the beginning of the workout.

We then moved on to 15x Kettlebell Swings and as before we continued with 10x Wall Balls and 5x Burprees. Now these Burpees were getting a little be tougher.. especially the second set.

Our third segment consisted of 15x Sit Ups, 10x Wall Balls and 5 Burpees, Now you're tired and you're just pushing through the pain to make it four minutes.

We then moved on to our last segment which was 15x Kettlebell Rows, 10x Wall Balls and yes 5x Burpee's. I was exhausted but managed to do the Kettlebell Rows at a good pace and pushed through the Wall Balls but the Burpees almost stopped me in my tracks and then when I was done I had to do them all over again and it was a struggle but I managed to get through 4 or the 5 burpees on my second round.

So I almost did two complete rounds of each set during the four minute sessions. Each time I'd be nearing the end of my second set of 5x Burpees before time ran out.

It was another exhausting workout but I'm happy to say that it looked alot worse then it actually was. But that can be said for 90% of the workouts we do. They look impossible but when you're done with them you think to yourself.. that wasn't as bad as I thought and I feel pretty great (well at least that is what I think to myself). I think the 3 minute rest periods help alot but that's not to say that we weren't all tired by the end of the workout.. but what is great about my fellow NerdStrongers they can always put on a smile and pose for a picture that I always request at the end of every class... Thanks guys.. you're all awesome. And thanks to Coach Andrew for another amazing workout.

Game Night at NerdStrong Gym

Wednesday was Magic the Gathering at NerdStrong... tonight is Game Night. So when I got off work I headed over to NerdStrong Gym. I got there a bit early and helped Derek and Seely set up. Soon we had a nice group of people so we stared with a "team" game called Geek Out!. I never played this but I did see it on Table Top and it looked like a lot of fun. It's a trivia game but as I mentioned you play in teams. There is a die with different colors on each side, each one of those colors correspond with a certain geeky topic/question. For example one of the questions might be, Name 3 Wizards that go bad. If your team can name three you announce it to the group. The other team has a chance to outbid you, for example they can say.. "We can name 5 Wizards", then you say "We can name 6" and then they counter with "We can do 7" and if your team can't go 8 then you tell them to "Go ahead and name them". If they can name as many as they claim they can, then win the card.. if they can't you win. It was a lot of fun but our teams were pretty evenly matched so we tied in the end. We played this game for about an hour before moving on and breaking into smaller groups.

Once in a smaller group the first game we played was Love Letters. I played this several times the last few NerdStrong Game Nights. It's a fairly easy game to learn and loads of fun to play. It's lot of guessing and a bit of luck but the games go quickly. We managed to play about 5 rounds before moving on to another game.

The last game of the evening was one that I had heard of (from Table Top) but never played, King of Tokyo. In King of Tokyo, you play mutant monsters, gigantic robots, and strange aliens – all of whom are destroying Tokyo and whacking each other in order to become the one and only King of Tokyo. At the start of each turn, you roll six dice. The dice show the following six symbols: 1, 2, or 3 Victory Points, Energy, Heal, and Attack. Over three successive throws, choose whether to keep or discard each die in order to win victory points, gain energy, restore health, or attack other players into understanding that Tokyo is YOUR territory. The fiercest player will occupy Tokyo, and earn extra victory points, but that player can't heal and must face all the other monsters alone! Top this off with special cards purchased with energy that have a permanent or temporary effect, such as the growing of a second head which grants you an additional die, body armor, nova death ray, and more.... and it's one of the most explosive games of the year! In order to win the game, one must either destroy Tokyo by accumulating 20 victory points, or be the only surviving monster once the fighting has ended.

This was a fun game to play, easy to learn and something I can see playing again. As it got close to midnight we finished off our second game of King of Tokyo before calling it a night. I helped Derek and Andrew clean up the gym and prepare for tomorrow mornings class, which I was also partaking in before heading home.

It was another successful Game Night at NerdStrong Gym. Thanks to Derek and Seely for organizing it and to Coach Andrew & Marla for allowing us to use NerdStrong.

NerdStrong Open Gym - Zombies!!!

Today is open Gym at NerdStrong so I decided that I was going to do one of the workouts that I missed last weekend because of Star Wars Celebration. I went with the themed one on Sunday called Zombies.

This workout consisted of 10 different stations. Push Ups, Leg Leaders, Run, row, Battle Ropes, Box Jumps, Goblet Squats, Slam Balls, Wall Balls and Lunges.

So here's the deal, the original workout you had to do x30 of each thing and a 500m run and 300m row. Coach Seely suggested that I only do x20 for each task but still do the 500m run and 300m row, so that's what I did. The original workout had piece of paper that people would randomly pick and it would tell them which workout to do. We did not have those pieces of paper but Coach Seely came up with an alternative way of doing it and had me roll a 20 sided die.  So I numbered each workout 1 to 10, if I rolled a 1 - 10 then I'd obviously do the corresponding number but if I rolled 11 to 20 I'd just remove 10 from the number and do that one, example if I rolled a 14 then that would be a 4. Surprisingly I did roll do many repeated numbers.

Another part of this is that it was a timed workout.. we had 12 minutes to escape (complete the 10 tasks). If we couldn't finish everything within 12 minutes then you had to add x10 reps to all remaining workouts.. if it was a run or row you had to add 100m. As you can see from my board I didn't finish in time and had to add x10 reps to my Leg Leaders and Lunges I also had to add another 100m to my row.

This was a fun workout but it's not the same when you are doing it solo. When you're part of a team you tend to push each other and go harder. I didn't finish within the 12 minutes, I still had three more tasks to do... could I have finished if I did this on Sunday with a partner.. maybe, maybe not but I do know team workouts are more enjoyable when you are with a team :)

Thanks Coach Seely and Jason for helping me out with this workout.

Random Question.. Nerd vs. Geek

So every now and then I like to ask a random question, usually a random geek question but this time I was asking a question about using the term geek or nerd. Here's the question "Random question... which term do you refer to yourself as... Geek or Nerd and Why?"

Dpwac immediately sent me several comments via twitter explaining how they describe Nerd and Geek.

@dpwac @Geekyfanboy Geek is about obsession, with anything. You can geek out over Marvel, the Periodic Table or cooking. Nerd is the intellectual.

@dpwac @Geekyfanboy Nerd can be STEM, literature or pop culture, but I view them as the quieter version of geeks.

@dpwac @Geekyfanboy Nerds have book clubs, geeks go to con :)

@dpwac @Geekyfanboy But that's my personal view, and someone probably thinks I'm wrong. And this is the internet so I'll hear about it in my TL :)

@dpwac @Geekyfanboy Oh, I'm a giant geek. Caps hockey, beer, BSG, Chelsea FC. Anything that I like, I follow obsessively :)

I got a few more comments via twitter..

@BelRand @Geekyfanboy Geek in English but "Nörd" in Swedish as we dont have any good geek-eqvuivalents

@cshell87 @Geekyfanboy Nerd. Not much into expressing fandoms, but I like to know stuff. Lots of geek/nerd interests overlap though.

@TheRobZone @Geekyfanboy Nerd. I'm more intellectually curious than getting jazzed up about other people's creations.

And then there was Facebook.

Pamela Self Templin - Both. If it's about a specific topic like math, history, and so on, I use nerd. If it's more broad, like theatre, sci-fi, etc., I use geek. So, science nerd; theatre geek.

Erin Coplan - I like both, and use both, but nerd more often, no specific reason why.

Jim McCaffree - Weirdo.

Jami Losurdo - I only use awesome person.

Anthony Thompson - I prefer the term passionate badass.

Jennifer Luchsinger - Both!

Alyska Gutzwiller - I probably use Geek more often, but I use both too. I also like Dork, Weird and Freak.

Lauren Natoli - I prefer "geek," but where I grew up, "nerd" was used for an uptight/bookish/overly-correct person and I'm not really any of those things, so I don't use it as much. "Geek" wasn't a term I heard used much before this new era of geek that's risen in the past few years.

Sebastiaan Van Dijk - Both. Geek because i obsess about tons of things (card games, superheroes, games). Nerd because i'm a highly intelligent person working in IT.

Rick Dostie - I've used both to describe myself, but lately I've started to like just the term "fan" or fanboy or fangirl more. Because everyone is a fan of something.

Joshua Hsu - Sometimes I call myself a Neek or a Gerd. That way I don't have to make a decision

Markus Hunt - I think it's difficult to pigeonhole yourself as a genre these days. I know goths who steampunk and airsoft. I wargame but love sports. I'm happy being a Friend Of Kenny but that would make me a FOKer

Mark Daniels - I call myself a nerd.

Matt Cipoletti - Geek

Harry Dauz - Neither!

John Keating - My name is John

Justin Kemmling - Both. Because essentially they are the same. At the same time they are different and I act like a geek at times and act like a nerd at times. I'm a paradox.

Doug Rusley - Geek, usually.

Thanks to everyone who responded. I think I'm like most people here and use both but I tend to use Geek more often then Nerd... hence my "online" name Geekyfanboy. 

NerdStrong Gym - The Upper Body Workout

Coach Andrew is back today.. woot!! It's a strength day today which normally means barbell work.

We started with a pretty good warm up. 2 rounds of 10x Air Squats, 30x Jumping Jacks, 10x Half Moons and finally 30x Mountain Climbers.

Next was the Skill part of the out.. today we did Close Grip Bench Press'. I've done bench press' in the past but not close grip, it really does work an entirely different part of your body. We started with 5 reps at a light weight and then did another set a 5 at the same weight. We then did 3 sets of 3 at a heavier weight. For Derek (my partner) and I we up'd the weight each time before hitting our limit. For the last set Coach Andrew wanted us to do 8 or more reps at a lower weight. We opted for 65lbs and it proved to be a bit to light for me as I hit my 20th rep before stopping.

After that we moved on to Negative Pull Ups, which means you pull yourself up to the bar and then slowly release back down, it's alike a reverse pull up. These are really tough, maybe not as tough as an actual pull up but most of use can't do multiple pull ups in a row. In between sets of pull ups we did Dumbbell Shoulder Press. These were a bit easier until I up'd my weight from 15lbs to 20lbs and then things got interesting.

To finish off the workout for the day we did a Half TABATA Hollow Hold. This is raising your head and shoulders off the ground a few inches while doing the same with your feet and legs. We had to hold for :20 seconds before taking a :10 second break.. we did this four times and by the fourth your stomach/core is burning.

BTW the 7am class has really gown this past week.. it use to be just a few of us but now we have seven to eight members working out.. it's pretty great. Thanks to Coach Andrew for another great workout..

Magic The Gathering at NerdStrong

After work today I headed back to NerdStrong Gym.. not to workout for a second time today, but instead for Magic the Gathering game night. I hadn't played Magic since it first came out but I did join a game last month here at NerdStrong and had a really fun time so I figured I'd give it another go. I didn't feel confident enough to partake in the "draft" so I played a causal game with my Magic The Gathering Nemesis Liz.

We only played one game but it lasted for over an hour and it was a really good one. We both did some major damage to each other but in the end Liz the White defeated Kenny the Green, but don't worry will have a re-match next month and I'll surely be the victor. You're going down Liz!!!!

The Geekie Awards, I'm Judging Again

Hey all you creative people.. I will once again be judging "Podcasts" for the Geekie Awards. This is the 3rd year for this awesome award show and this will be my 3rd year doing it. Of all the award shows this one celebrates all the geeks/nerds. These are real people like you and me who love to create online content.

If you've never heard of this award show then here is their mission statement. The Geekie Awards is an award show by geeks for geeks, aimed at putting the true geek culture in the spotlight as a collection of valid, respected, award-winning genres for storytelling and creation. In an industry filled with award shows for established celebrities, we honor talented, independent creators and give them the opportunity to receive recognition in front of a worldwide audience and leaders in their respective industries. We inspire creativity and hope and foster cross-market innovation. Our mission is to create a fun, action-packed, unforgettable broadcast event tailored to all of the things we geeks love: entertainment, gaming, products and art—delivered via the latest digital technologies.

If you're interested in submitting one of your project just follow the link to http://www.thegeekieawards.com/ You can also check out my judge page at http://www.thegeekieawards.com/judges/kenny-mittleider/

NerdStrong Gym - Hunting Orcs

It's Wednesday, which you all know means "CON" day at NerdStrong Gym.. and "CON" day means Coach Blair. Well like with Coach Andrew, Coach Blair is out of town so today we have Coach David teaching class.

Today's workout is titled "Orc Hunt" Coach David set the scene from Lord of the Ring when Merry and Pippin are taken by the Orcs and it's up to us (the fellowship) to rescue them. In order to do so we have to run and run and run. But first we had to warm up. For the warm up we did team rowing (300m each) and then calf and hamstring stretches to prepare our legs for this crazy run.

The workout started with a 250m run, which is one time around the parking lot. We then did a 500m run, which is twice around the parking lot and then finally a 750m run, three times around the parking lot. Of course we rest between runs. We would rest the amount of time it took us to complete the run. Once we finish our 750m we work back down the ladder. Another 500m run and finally the last 250m run. To make it even more challenging you can carry a Hobbit (sandbag) while you are run.

Coach David made a comment about how he likes to "theme" his workouts to soften the blow of what we are about to do and I told him that it really works. It's not just your typical workout. You can immerse yourself into this fantasy world and somehow that lessen the workout. For example with this workout..  I opted to carry a sandbag (Hobbit) but I changed up the scenario a bit, instead of rescuing Merry and Pippin I was Samwise and I was carrying Mr. Frodo up Mount Doom to destroy the ring. When I was exhausted and couldn't take another step I would think to myself.. Sam wouldn't just drop Mr. Frodo, he'd push himself to his limit to make sure Frodo completed his mission. It may sounds silly but it worked.. I did the entire run with a 20lb sandbag around my shoulders. Thanks Coach David for always going all out for our fun workouts.

NerdStrong Gym - GymKata

Since coach Andrew is on vacation today's workout was ran by coach Christy. And boy was it a good one.

We started with a pretty hefty warm up. 25x Jumping Jacks, 10x Seal Jacks, 8x Long Lunges, 12x Cossack Squat, Bent Torso Twist, Inch Worm Push-Ups, Shoulder Circles and Wringing the Towel.

After the warm up we jumped into today's workout.
It is station based, I love station based workouts. This is where we have different stations, each with it's own task.

We teamed up into groups of two, my partner was Jen and took our place at a certain station (one team per station). We were doing 1 minute of work and then a :30 second break/transition to the next station.

Jen and I started with Station 4 Wall Balls but instead of going in order of stations we just went clockwise, which just seemed easier, so our next station was Station 2 Sit Ups. I opted to do a bit harder and grabbed a barbell weight and did my sit ups with that. After Sit Ups we moved on to Station 1, Plyo Push Ups, this is doing push ups against a box. Next we moved on to Station 5 and did Medicine Ball Cleans before moving to our final station, Station 3 Handstand Holds and I'm happy to say I did pretty good with those handstands.

It's funny as you don't think 1 minute is a long time but man when you're in the middle of throwing a 14lbs medicine ball up a wall it feels like forever. You'd be in the middle of your workout and then the coach would say... "you're halfway done" and you think to yourself.. OMG that was only :30 seconds.

But Jen and I did fantastic, in fact everyone in class did a great job, we even had a few noobs and they rocked it!! Coach Christy was awesome as always, I don't get to be coached by her very often so this was a treat.

Being away from the Gym the past four days was tough but after today's workout it was like I never left.. and that's a great feeling.

Fantastic 4, Jurassic Park, Rebels S2 & A Geeky Priest

More movies trailers.. we saw Star Wars The Force Awakens earlier this week.. then Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. And now two news were released.. first up, Fox has released a new trailer for the rebooted Fantastic Four. I actually am one of the few people who actually enjoyed both of the Fantastic Four movies but I have to say this new "darker" reboot looks pretty awesome. Gonna add this to my list of must sees.

The second movie trailer released was for Jurassic World, this is the second trailer to be released and I have to say it looks pretty awesome. It also looks like a lot of people are gonna die. I don't know if it will live up to the first movie, as #2 and #3 did not but it does have Chris Pratt.. so that's pretty good.

There was also a trailer released for Star Wars Rebels season two. This premiered at Celebration a few days ago but they just released it publicly. I have to say, this second season looks AMAZING. I enjoyed season one of Rebels but I can now see that it was all a set up for this bigger, badder, boulder season two... I can't wait!!!

And the final video I want to share with you guys is of a Catholic Priest named Father Roderick. Father is a huge geek and a fellow podcaster. I have been listening to his podcasts for many years so It's cool to see that one of his videos has gone viral.. and rightfully so. His reaction to the new Star Wars trailer is priceless, this guy is genuine and it's one reason why I enjoy his work.

Star Wars Celebration VII - Cosplayers

There were a ton of awesome Cosplayers at this years Celebration. I plan to put a bunch of photos up on my Facebook page in the coming days.. but here are some of my favorites.

Star Wars Celebration - Day 4

Today is the final day of Star Wars Celebration 2015. I was up early and packed up the hotel solo since both of my hotelmates stayed elsewhere last night. I loaded up my car with everyone's things and then checked out. I headed over to the con around 9am and once again got into the very long entry line. I figured since it was Sunday and the last day that things would be a bit slower today.. well I was wrong.

Today I was suppose to hang out with my friends Chris and Hayley but they were running late so when I got into the hall I went to get in line for Roxy the Rancor. I wanted to get a picture of just me fighting off Roxy. The line for Roxy was long but I figured I didn't have anything better to do so I jumped in. About ten minutes later my buddy Brett showed up with his mom Sharlene and they joined me in the Rancor line. Just as we were about to get our picture Chris and Hayley showed up and joined in. After the Rancor picture my buddy Aaron joined the group as well as friends Katie and Adam... we roamed the halls. I had already seen everything but this was Brett and his mom's first day so we re-visited a bunch of things.. we were also able to take some really fun group photos since there were so many of us. We did this until around lunch time when we all headed out to the food trucks to grab a bite to eat where we were joined by Jes.

After lunch we all headed back inside and continued our tour of the halls. Around 1ish we started to lose people until it was just Adam and I. We decided to go upstairs and get in line for the Star Wars Episode VII prop room. By the time we got up there they had already closed the line but like with the store yesterday they allowed us to get in line but there was no guarantee that we would get in the room. So the long wait begun.. an hour or so into the wait we were joined by Katie and Kim. As the clock ticked closer to 4pm (the time the room closed) our hopes were dashed as there was no way we were going to get inside before they closed. Luckily the folks running the lines actually came up with a plan to allow most of us still waiting to get in, we would at least see the props. They had us walk single file into the room and then immediately out. We couldn't stop and take pictures or really get a good look at the stuff.. we were in and out in just a few minutes. We did get to see the props first hand so venture was kind of a success but then again there was no time to really look at them so it kind of failed as well. Oh well it was fun hanging with Adam, Katie and Kim.

Afterwards we all parted ways and we had an hour left before the halls closed so I went down and tried to get as many photos as I could. I ended up in the artist alley chatting with my artist friend Jeff when buddies Brian and Doug showed up. I spent a about 15 minutes chatting with those guys before calling it a day and heading back to the hotel to pick up my car.

Overall Star Wars Celebration VII 2015 was a success. I had a ton of fun geeking out with fellow Star Wars fans the past four days. I got to see some great panels and though there was lots of line standing I did most of that standing with friends.. which is always fun.

They did announce the next Celebration which will be in London next year so I probably won't be attending that one.. but if it's ever back in CA I'll be sure to grab my 4 day pass. Well worth the time and money.

After the con I had to head to my brothers to drop off his and Jason's bags that were left in the hotel room. I got to spend a little time with my family before heading to my favorite Chinese place to grab some much needed dinner. Once home I watched some tv and ate my dinner before calling it a night.