New Thing 312, New Thing Every Day: Get Electric Shock Treatments to My Muscles

[Did it yesterday. Posted it today.]

Alright, this was totally weird, and I do not mind telling you that I was a little scared to do it. A relatively new treatment for all sorts of muscle-related issues -- MS, in my case -- is to apply electric current directly to the muscles, causing them to contract. The result is basically involuntary exercise, and it can help your muscles in the same way, building them up to a small extent, and exercising the neural pathways.

What they do is put a couple of patches on the targeted muscles -- various leg muscles, for me -- and then start the current. The machine my physical therapist was using could go up to 100 amps, and he stopped at 87 for me. He kept saying to let him know if it was too much, but I told him it would have to be pretty bad for me to complain, and that he was probably going to have to decide if he was giving me too much. That ended up being the case. At the 87 amps, he gave me six minutes per muscle, alternating for 10 seconds each, between legs. He gave me fewer amps for one muscle group because it was behaving in a way he did not like -- severely contracting and lifting my leg off the table.

The experience was not really painful, just uncomfortable, but totally bearable. I suspect I am going to start doing it on a regular basis.

New Thing 311, New Thing Every Day: Send a Letter to Someone I Know in Jail

This is a little bit of a technicality because I have known two people in federal prison (politicians) and mailed both of them, but I also kind of feel like jail is different. As you may have seen, I tried to visit this friend on Tuesday, but he already had someone with him (Boone County allows just one visitor each week).

When I posted last week about the visit attempt, my friend Marie Hunter suggested that I write a letter, so that is what I have done. As you might guess, I am not going to share most of it, but I did let him know that really do not know anything about his charges and that I am making myself available to the extent that he needs a friend. Someone is going to read this and think this is the wrong thing to do, that I am supporting bad behavior, but I think it is just being human. People do bad things, and mostly I do not think this makes them 100% bad people. In this case, I feel like I am doing the compassionate thing, without supporting bad behavior.

We will see where it goes.

New Thing 310, New Thing Every Day: Try a Wagyu Steak

[Did this yesterday. Posted Today.]

Leigh and I went to CC's City Broiler for a little date last night and their specials were a few different wagyu cuts of steak. I had the ribeye, medium. Yes, it was totally delicious, and now I get why it is considered such a delicacy.

New Thing 309, New Thing Every Day: Buy a Car in Another City, Found on the Internet

[Did this yesterday; posted today.]

It has been over 10 years since I bought a car, and I am not sure it was even possible to buy one over the Internet then. This time, I searched with several sites for cars within 150 miles and found one I really liked, at the price we wanted, in Sedalia. Bizarrely, I was actually scheduled to spend the day speaking at a conference in Sedalia yesterday -- I basically never go there -- so I went to the dealership when I was done, bought the car, and a couple of their guys followed me home to deliver it.

The car is a 2015 Toyota RAV4 Limited (the first foreign car I have ever bought, after years of refusing -- yes, I have accepted globalism). Except for the convertible Mustang GT I had for years, it is absolutely the nicest car I have ever owned and I am pretty excited about it.

New Thing 308, New Thing Every Day: Try to Visit Someone in Jail

A guy I know in town is in jail; he has been in for over a month and has at least a few weeks to go. We are friendly and see each other from time to time, but we are not really friends. What he is accused of doing is pretty bad and I can't for a second dismiss it. That said, you might think it is weird that I would try to visit him, and it probably was. I struggled over it, but I thought about how I might feel if I was in jail -- deservedly or not -- and I decided that visiting, offering a little human kindness, was the right thing to do.

Well, in the end, all of the thought and soul searching did not really matter. The way it works is that inmates get just one visiting day each week (based on their last name, alphabetized), and they get just one visitor on that day. On top of that, it is very difficult to communicate with inmates and basically impossible to coordinate visitation (or even make sure it is wanted).

Tonight, I went to Boone County Jail to visit, but someone was already there with him. It was not super surprising, and I bet it happens every week (at least I hope it does, for his sake).

Moving forward, I am going to just take it as a sign and let the situation lie.

New Thing 307, New Thing Every Day: Do 100 Crunches

In my entire life, I have never done 100 crunches -- not at once, not even over the course of an entire day. I did it this morning, though, and will do it as part of every workout for the at least the rest of the year. Admittedly, they were crappy crunches, but now that I have done them, I can focus on form and getting better.

By the way, yes, I realize that there might be better exercises for me to do or better ways to do the crunches, but this is what I am doing for now. Next year, I will revisit my entire workout and likely make significant adjustments.

New Thing 306, New Thing Every Day: Take a Leave of Absence from Rotary

I have been a relatively active member of Rotary for the better part of 17 years. My dad was a member for 20 years. One of my brothers is still a member and has been for over 30 years -- he has been president of his club and is on the path to being governor for the Orlando district (a pretty big one). It is obviously an important family tradition and it has been very important to me over many years, but it is time to take  break. Over 2018, I am launching two national programs and trying to do a variety of other things, and I just have to let something go. Sadly, Rotary is it, and I am officially taking a leave of absence. Hopefully, I will rejoin and make an even bigger contribution after 2018.