Last days of 2008 - training and other rare moments that matter!

I've been mostly offline the last week, since my mom actually came up to Minnesota to visit for the holidays -- which is ground-breaking, since she never thought she'd have the nerve to visit in the deep-freeze this time of year!! (A little background: this woman is from Florida, and she is a native of The Philippines.) However, she found that it really isn't THAT bad... after all, she had lived in New York for over 20 years, too.

Yes, I did bench on Dec. 27th (a 145 single, 135x3x2 drop set, 155x3x2 board presses, 145x3x2 decline bench presses, weighted ab work and a few more dips than last week which inspired Mitch to start doing a few dips again also).

BUT, I sacrificed my squat day on the 28th due to flooding in our basement that had to get fixed... or, at least, we thought it was fixed. A couple days later, we found that Roto Rooter didn't get the job done, and then Mitch had to sacrifice his light bench day to deal with Minnesota's 10,001 st lake. What-EVER!! (Define "30-day guarantee??")

I didn't get to make up for that squat day I missed, due to an awesome new job I just started this past week, from which I came home everyday to my mom and my son (which is an awesome thing -- seeing him spending time with his grandmom). I figure it's easier to make up for a missed training day than it is to ever get family memories back again... and in my family, moments like the ones we've seen at home are just plain rare.

Here's something else that's exceedingly rare... a YouTube old-school video sent to me on Christmas Day from a fellow powerlifter and supportive fan, showcasing deadlifting by Donna Wicker, a 97 lb. phenom from back in da day -- 1981 (on NBC Sports)!! He thought I'd find it very, very cool to watch another petite powerlifter grippin-n-rippin old-school, and he was right-on...