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Are you looking for a new hair stylist in San Francisco? Look no further than Willie Lizardo. I’ve known Willie for over 10 years, and he’s been cutting hair for over 20 years. He cuts hair for both men and women, and is up to speed on the latest trends and styles. Something Willie told me that I found interesting is the fact that one of the hottest new hair trends, a Brazilian Blowout, involves a chemical that contains a substantial amount of formaldehyde. Willie offers an alternative treatment called Natural Keratin Smoothing that accomplishes the same thing without the use of formaldehyde. Clearly, Willie is up to speed on the latest safe hair trends, not just the latest thing that is promoted in all the fashion magazines.

Willie also helped introduce me to my latest obsession, indoor climbing at Mission Cliffs here in San Francisco, so we always have lots to talk about when he’s cutting my hair!

Right out of the car, for this city dog, Fly thought this was the biggest park she had ever seen.

She saw some fun stuff!

…walked for a really long time….

…and finally stopped.

But best of all, Fly met some new friends.

Remember that whole 100 consecutive pushup thing?

Yah… um, so….. that didn’t quite happen.

I started week 3, which was pretty tough, and then went on vacation. At some point during my vacation I decided that I was on a vacation from pushups…. but when I came back I never started up the pushups again.

To be honest, it was also just getting really hard. I could feel my shoulder getting damaged, probably related to when I used to swim, and each day it would get worse.

So yah, I gave up.

However, the good news is that it may be better for me to have stopped given that I’m now training up for Cyclocross racing. For the last 3 weeks, I’ve been riding 3-4 times a week, 2-4 hour workouts. This week I’m starting to run a little bit too.

My goal is to loose about 20 pounds before the season starts in hopes that this will help give me a competitive advantage.

Well, another week is over. I gave myself 2 1/2 days rest after day 3 of week 2 before I did the test again. I have to say…. I am disappointed that I only did 5 more pushups than I did in the initial test, for a grand total of 30 pushups.

The good news is that I was able to manage the 3rd column of week 2 almost completely. I did come in shy of the minimum for level 5 on days 2 & 3, but that was a little better than week 1.

Anyways, on to week 3!

One word: Soreness!

I can’t believe how sore I am. After Day 2, I was barely able to raise my hands over my head. Sheesh!

When I did the initial test and completed 25 pushups, that put me in the hardest pushup track. For days 2 and 3, I couldn’t quite complete levels 4 & 5 in the hardest track, so I think I might try the middle track in week 2…. we’ll see.

The good news is that as I progress, recovery time is dropping significantly.

On to week 2!

Henwrath sweet talked me into doing this so called ‘meme’ , One Hundred Pushups.

The idea is that anyone can train themselves to do 100 consecutive push ups after 6 weeks of training only 30 minutes a week.

I just did the initial test and could only do 25. Henry did 60 on his test, so now, of course, we have to race to see who can reach 100 first…. but the twist is that it has to be after we drink 3 beers. (You thought I was joking, right Henry?)

Onree cynically comments on the self congratulatory nature of cyclists during todays Bike to Work Day. I didn’t get into the office until noon today, so I guess I avoided the masses… but there were a lot of hipster bikes in front of Ritual. Hmmm…. I wonder how they got there?

Unfortunately, there is a grain of truth in Onree’s rant…. this YouTube clip is, as Jason would say, so right on!

I got a sad call from my sister about an hour ago that Pepper, one of my parent’s poodles, had to be put down because of severely invasive tumors. Pepper was a great dog, and I’ll miss her.

Pepper

Sandy and Pepper kept me company in July while my parents were in Europe

click to enlarge

After nearly a week of amazing weather here in San Francisco, it looks like we’re gonna get a ton of rain over the weekend. That’s ok….. this morning we were treated to one of the best sunrises I’ve seen in a long time.