The Dote 4: Why is everything broken

Hey Friends!

This is going to be a short Dote this week. I’m working on something cool, but want to take it a bit further and do it justice with a good write-up. I’m using AI to help me build an application and it is absolutely blowing. My. Mind.

I have zero coding knowledge or experience and so watching this application come to life is like literal magic.

Work has been stressful and I feel like it’s been draining me of creativity, so finding a way to explore AI and do something trivial in a non-trivial, over-the-top creative way is invigorating.

More on that next week!

Life Dote: Why does everything break at once

Do you ever go through a stretch in life where you feel like everything is breaking? We’re definitely going through one of those right now. Feels like that Series of Unfortunate Events book series that I hated growing up because it gave me anxiety about what was going to go wrong next.

In just the last month we’ve had

• Dishwasher give out - bought a new one

• Microwave on the fritz - debating buying a new one

• Hannah’s computer dying (maybe. Hoping it’s just a phase)

• Flat tire on my car from a nail in the parking garage - got it patched

• Second flat tire from a second nail in the parking garage - couldn’t get it patched, had to get new tires. I don’t park in the same place anymore

• A/C in the minivan went out - replaced the compressor

• Sliding door on the minivan going crazy

• Three light bulbs in the house going out (small, but obnoxious, and how did they all go out in the same week?)

• Smoke detector going out (sort of, it keeps beeping for a bit like it’s running out of battery but then goes silent for days at a time so I don’t know which one it is. Smoke detector beeping has to be in my top 5 all time triggers)

• Oakley getting strep

• Figuring out Oakley is somehow not being covered on our insurance this year (what the heck? just figured out this one yesterday)

• Elliott’s bike chain broke

• Someone stole our recycling bin

• Our trash can broke in half.

Do you pity me yet? Haha. That’s not the point, because despite all these things I still consider my family and I to be in high spirits. Our life is great, and we’re lucky that we have the means to deal with everything.

But dang it’d be nice if stuff would just go back to working how it’s supposed to! Feel like I need to sage cleanse our house or something.

Fitness Dote: Russian squat program complete

After taking last week as a deload week following my failed 100% 2×2, I finished out the 18th and final session of the Russian Squat Program on Friday. After 6 weeks of heavy squats 3x per week, I finally went to test for a new max lift and…

I hit a 10#PR! Went up from 365 to 375 🥳 

I’m pumped about the improvement. The program tries to have you hit 105% of your previous 1RM at the end of the 18 weeks, but I’ll take my 3% increase any day.

I attempted 385 twice. Got close the first time and didn’t have it the second time.

What matters to me about this is that I saw it through to the end. And I feel like I’m much better at squats for it, which will hopefully make me better at olympic lifting. Even if I didn’t hit 105%, my squat endurance increased, I got better at the movement, and I learned a lot about my body.

I really enjoyed spending full days on squats, but I’m also ready to get back to some good ol’ CrossFit metcon workouts. Even though my weight has stayed about the same over the last 6 weeks, my cardio has suffered, and I just signed up for a competition in December so I’ve gotta get in gear.

Overall, I’d give the program an 8.5/10. Only deductions are that it’s hard to do anything else while you’re so focused on squats, and my knees did start to feel the impact of so much volume by the end.

That’s it for this week! Hopefully in my next Dote I’ll be able to show you my app and (spoiler) go into depth about what I buy at Costco.

Thanks for all your replies, I love getting to chat!