Rick’s Rants and Raves

Today was Nathan’s third Pinewood Derby. In the previous two derbies, he’d done well. OK, let me back up….

Today was our third Pinewood Derby. In the previous two derbies, we’d done well. I say “we” because it is intended as a parent-son activity. It is intended that the parents will help the scout with some of the more difficult bits of designing, shaping, and finishing their car. So, although we try to call it the scouts car, it is really the product of the parent’s and scout’s work.

As such, I felt a reasonable amount of pride that Nathan’s our car has made it to the finals the last two years. I figured I’d come across a reasonably successful formula of preparation techniques to produce a good car, and that over the years I’d perfect those techniques to help Nathan win some time. We spent a fair bit of time working on his our car.

Today was the test of those techniques. In the “standard” race, in which only the scouts participate, our car came in second-to-last in the final point standing. I think the only races that our car wasn’t 4th (of 4) was when another car jumped the track. More often than not, it wasn’t even close. Nathan was visibly upset but maintained his composure very well.

After the scouts’ race was finished, I looked at his car and made some adjustments that I thought would help. For example, the spray-paint finish seemed to be a bit tacky, so I put some tape on the body to protect the wheels from rubbing on the paint. I also adjusted the axels a bit and added some more lubrication. I also added a car of my own to the race: a completely unfinished pinewood derby kit. Its a block of wood with four wheels. It was called “Blockhead”. I really wanted to see just how much difference all the work made on a car.

Unfortunately, the blockhead car beat the car we’d spent ours designing and finishing. Out of 14 racers, the blockhead car came in 10th. Our “highly tuned” car came in 13th. Clearly something was wrong with the car. I still can’t tell what.

So, in one respect, we utterly failed to make a decent pinewood derby car.

But in the part that matters, it was a total Win. I was very proud of the way Nathan behaved. He was disappointed, but he didn’t throw a temper tantrum. He didn’t cry; he didn’t stomp out of the race; he didn’t blame me or himself. He was puzzled at the results (as I am) but he didn’t beat himself up about it. He was a great kid that demonstrated wonderfully one of the other lessons of the pinewood derby: not everyone is a winner. He managed one of the best smiles I’ve ever seen after two defeats.

Today, I accomplished something in my exercising that I didn’t think I’d ever be able to do: I impressed my brother-in-law.

Theo is a big guy. He outweighs me by 70 pounds and most (OK, a lot) of that is in muscle. Since I started lifting weights, he and I’ve talked about what I’m doing, and how his work outs compare, etc. I don’t mind telling him the weights I’m working with because I know he’s stronger than I am. Its really not a big deal. I don’t feel like I’m competing against him–we’re just sharing common experiences.

Last weekend at our kids’ family birthday party, Theo and I were talking about lifting, and I mentioned the progress I’d made recently on dips–that I could do body weight+45 pounds. He was impressed and confided that he didn’t think he could do a single dip. We then worked out that he has 70 pounds on me, and I quickly figured there was no way I could do a single dip with 70 pounds strapped to my hips.

Today was a 4×4 day (four sets of four reps) so the weights tend to be the heaviest I lift. I looked at the dips apparatus and thought “do I dare even try one dip with 70 pounds?” The preivous time I had done 4×4 on dips, I had completed 4 sets at +45, failing to make the last rep in the last set (so I did only 15 total reps at +45). Twenty five pounds sounded like a big jump, but I convinced myself that I would try to complete just one.

I stepped up, strapped the weight around my hips and got into position, elbows locked. Much to my amazement, I was able to complete 4! I was astonished. The next set I backed the weight down to +50 and got through it without too much difficulty. I decided to really push myself on the final two sets and completed them both at +60. So, thats 4 at +70, 4 at +50 and 8 at +60. Wow.

I sent Theo a text message to brag a little: “4 dips @ BW+70!”

His reply: daaaaamn hercules

This afternoon on my way home from work, I listened to part of an interview with Darren Aronofsky, the director for The Wrestler.

At 23:20

Fresh Air host Terry Gross: Now he has the kind of muscle in this film that you usually need steroids to get, and his character does shoot steroids in order to get his muscles. So what did he do to get the muscle legally?

Aronofsky: He worked really hard. Since it took a year and a half to raise the money [for the movie] and he knew about it for that long, it was ultimately about two years he had to start thinking about it. He hired this really hard core trainer, this former Israeli commando who was a former cage fighter–the guy just took no BS. He lifted twice a day and drank about 7000 calories a day and was always walking around with one of those shakes. The thing is, Mickey’s dad, his real dad, was actually a Mr. New York, a body builder. And so I think he’s always been kind of a gym rat, so he’s in that culture.

So, here I thought was at least partly an answer to my earlier question: is it possible to really build muscle after 35? The answer is (anecdotally at least) yes, if you workout twice a day, have a hard-core-cage-fighting-commando personal trainer, and have the genetics to support it. I guess for me that means, no, No, NO.

Then I went looking for pictures of his great transformation. First a picture of him in the Wrestler, released in 2008.

I then went looking for comparable shots in recently previous movies.  I couldn’t find anything for Stormbreaker (2006) or True Crime: New York City (2005), but I did find this shot for Sin City (2005)

If anything, I think he looks bigger in Sin City. Perhaps that was after a long stint of body building to get in shape. OK, that’s probably likely. Maybe then he took a year off, then started training for The Wrestler.

I think the result is that Rourke was already built for the part. Gross’ question implies he’d made a huge transformation, but in fact he was already primed to looked pumped.

From Kluge, by Gary Marcus, page 143:

Teenagers as a species seem almost pathologically driven by short-term rewards. They make unrealistic estimates of the attendant risks and pay little attention to long-term costs. Why? According to on recent study, the nucleus accumbens, which assesses reward, matures before the orbital frontal cortex, which guides long-term planning and deliberative reasoning. Thus teenagers may have an adult capacity to appreciate short-term gain, but only a child’s capacity to recognize long-term risk.

This totally explains some of my behavior as a teen. Sorry mom, but there were a few times that I behaved like I was completely dumb as rocks. Yes, I got caught a time or two, but I was incredibly lucky I didn’t get caught more.

As I deal with my near-teen daughter, and her relationship with her younger brother, I’m frequently frustrated that she doesn’t seem to understand that he’s younger, and therefore understands less than she does. I try to remember that Emily doesn’t understand as much as I do (nor I as much as my mother!). Given the quote above, I’ll have some answers to the question “what the hell were you thinking?” even though my kids won’t be able to provide them.

Incidentally, Kluge is an excellent book. It is a very easy to read explanation for the evolutionary development of the human brain. It has lots of great examples and descriptions to go along with the somewhat technical discussions. Thanks to Greta for suggesting it.