2/4/14

I went to the gym yesterday for the first time in over a week, because I had gotten a cold from my brother which completely shut me down. After getting warmed up, I started with the bench press and row machine, doing 3 sets of ten reps at 105 pounds on the bench press. Then 3 sets of row machine at 45, then 65 pounds, mixing in sets of 5 pull-ups. Moving to biceps, I did 10 reps at 55 pounds on bar curls. With triceps I did pull-downs at 80, 85, 90, and 95 pounds all at least 10 reps, nice and smooth. As all this was going on I would mix in sets of 20 exercise ball crunches and oblique crunches. After finishing my upper body with forearm twists and push-ups, I moved over to do my core work. 3 sets of, in order, 20 exercise ball crunches, 1 minute 30 second planks, 20 Romanian twists, 12 leg raised crunches, 12 up and twist crunches, and 20 oblique crunches. All this lasted an hour-and-a-half at which point I went home and had my protein shake.

Just a normal upper-body day for me in a long, 5 month stretch of winter. Now onto lower-body for today.            

1/29/14

Today I've been reading some more of Thomas Sowell's: Basic Economics.

The main point that he got across today was about Investments and Investment risks by both sides, the lender and the borrower. How the Lender can, by lending out $1 million dollars in total can recoup, and even make a 20% profit by having just 60% of the borrowers pay back what they were lent, plus interest. But with government interference, by putting a cap on the annual rates of interest, the only people that the lenders would want to, or even should, lend to would be millionaires because that's the only way they could recoup the money they lent out if they were to have that 60% rate of return. So the lower the annual rate of interest, the fewer people will be eligible to receive those loans, because there would be no incentive for the lenders to lend out money.        

1/28/14

Today was the day that I spent an hour on Sister Wendy Beckett's:
The Story of Painting.

Italy's greatest sculptor at the time of Giotto; Nicola Pisano, was the one truly responsible for bringing sculpting out of the Dark Ages. Before him sculptures lacked definition and style.

They were flat, plain, and rather wooden looking pieces. Nicola's sculptures brought solidity and a life-like element to them.(As seen here on the right: His Allegory of Strength.)  Which helped inspire Giotto's work, bringing it from the flatter Byzantine style, to a completely new style, known as the Renaissance style, with which the painters in the following age would use and bring to un-thought of heights.