Durf's Weekly Workout # 31: April 22nd, 2022

Well that didn't take long.  Second week back, and life just got real hectic.  The good news is that I managed to get the music blurbs done, so all you're missing out on is this part up here where I ramble on.  But you're here for the music anyway, so it's all good.  On to the tunes!

Durf's Weekly Workout # 30: April 15th, 2022

Well, that was a much larger break than I was anticipating!  When the Durfette and I moved our family to Tennessee last October, I thought I'd step away from this column for a couple of weeks, maybe through the end of the year.  So much for that.  The learning curve of my new job coupled with figuring out life with two kids under three in a new state absolutely torpedoed any chance I had of keeping up with Durf's Weekly Workouts, and while there were a couple of weeks in there where I probably could have made something happen, enough time had already gone by that I didn't really want to pick it back up unless I thought I could realistically keep it going every week.  And since you're reading this now, that means I think I'm at that point!  Hopefully this is the beginning of a trend of DWW being a much more common Friday occurrence around these parts, but I suppose time will tell.

Durf's Weekly Workout # 29: September 17th, 2021

Well, today's the day.  As you're reading this, the Casa de Durf is officially on the market to be sold.  This was obviously the plan as soon as the Durfette and I decided to move, and we have been working hard on getting things cleaned and ready for showings, as well as decluttering, donating and getting rid of things we don't want to take with us, and generally just condensing as much of our life into cardboard boxes as we can.  It has been more than a little stressful, slightly more challenging than I anticipated, and, sometimes, just a slight bit of fun, too (mainly because of the power washer.  If you ever - EVER - have the opportunity to power wash anything, fucking do it).  But now the house is on the market, and hopefully it will be sold before too long, and then we'll move away and in all realistic likelihood never see it again.  And the other day, as I was mowing the lawn for perhaps the last time, I got a little nostalgic.

Durf's Weekly Workout # 28: September 10, 2021

Well shit, that was a larger break than I anticipated.  A whole bunch of THINGS HAPPENING converged around my life over the past month, culminating in my taking an extended hiatus from lifting, and then from writing about said lifting.  Which is ok, because as much as I love working out, and the centering effects it has, sometimes you just gotta sleep after a crazy day/week/month.  Basically, the Durfette and I made the decision a couple months ago that we were going to leave Idaho, and that we should do it sooner than later. 

Durf's Weekly Workout # 27: August 6th, 2021

I teased this a couple weeks ago, and at the time, my choice to extol the virtues of the greatest pop song ever written was absolutely the correct one.  But now, my friends, the time has come, as this is obstensibly a blog about music and working out, which means we can't ignore or avoid it anymore.  It's time to talk about stretching.

Durf's Weekly Workout # 26: July 30th, 2021

A sixty hour work week, late (for me) nights, 2am workout wake ups, 100 degree temperatures, smokey skies, both Durflings out of nowhere deciding that sleep is for suckers, yard work, consults with professionals about additional yard work, and quite honestly a little bit of poor time management all conspired together to make this blog post an exercise in persistence to just finish.  Which is probably a good lesson about perseverance, but I'm probably grasping there.  Either way, this is probably the shortest Durf's Weekly Workout yet, and I deeply, deeply apologize to the amazing bands below who deserve so much more than I was able to give them this week.

Durf's Weekly Workout # 25: July 23, 2021

You'd think I'd start a list of topics for these intro blurbs, instead of just waiting for some half-assed (and occasionally whole ass) inspiration to fire a shot across my bow.  But no, if I think of something fun to write about while I'm at work or driving, I follow that thought up with one about how if it's good, I'll remember it later.  So now I'm sitting here trying to write something entertaining, and it's all just non-starters.  I've really become enamored with golfing lately? Who cares; everyone has hobbies.  The Durfette went to a Happy Hour with some work friends the other night, and I managed to put BOTH Durflings to bed successfully? I mean, that's one hell of a flex, so it sort of fits the whole "workout" theme of these posts, but nobody really wants to hear about me singing "Ten Little Dinosaurs" until my throat bleeds, so that's out.  Even these two ideas are just feints, my futile attempts at drumming up something interesting to talk about, clearly to no avail.  So, I dunno, you guys wanna talk about stretching routines, or how "Dragula" is pretty much the greatest pop song in written history?

Durf's Weekly Workout # 24: July 16th, 2021

Well, last week was insane, for a few reasons, all of them pretty fun.  I had a friend come in for the Fourth of July weekend, which was spent swimming, grilling, and watching the first two-thirds of Independence Day (that movie is loooong, and after entertaining a toddler in 100 degree heat all day, you're spent).  Then, after he left Tuesday morning, the Durfette and I immediately had to start preparing for a trip to Deer Lodge, Montana to visit her mom and her mom's husband.  We left Friday morning at 3am, because it's a 7.5 hour drive, and we wanted to have as much time there as possible before we left Sunday morning to come back.  Due to my buddy being in town through Tuesday, and the rapid-pace nature of our trip the following weekend, I decided it was the perfect time to throw down on a vitally important, but often overlooked component of a fitness routine: the rest week.

Durf's Weekly Workout # 23: July 2nd, 2021

Well holy cow, it's July already!  This year is going by much, much quicker than last year, which is a huge relief.  If you've been with us for a bit, you know that for my first post in April I did a baseball-themed sort of quarterly recap, and I said then that you should expect similar posts in July and October.  Well, as we've established, it's July, so I think you know what lies ahead.  So without further ado, play ball! 

Durf's Weekly Workout # 22: June 25th, 2021

It is getting hot here in Idaho.  Like real hot.  Like hot enough that my work is considering having us come in super early next week in order to avoid the 108 degree highs in the afternoon.  Which on the one hand, is real nice, because super fuck that noise.  On the other, going in to work early means either waking up even earlier to work out OR working out after work in that insane heat.  Which is just as appealing as working in it.  So I'm not sure how next week is going to go, so I'm using this week's intro blurb to prepare you for the fact that there might not be a post next week.  Got it?

Durf's Weekly Workout # 21: June 18th, 2021

Obviously, when a lot of people think about working out, they think about it in physical terms.  Wanting to lose weight or build muscle.  Trying to be healthy.  Things like that.  And it makes sense to think about it this way, since it's a physical act.  But there is a mental/emotional component to working out too.  Pride in your accomplishments in the gym, confidence from looking and feeling your best are two big mental aspects; I know that I personally feel off all day if I skip a workout during the week.  I've been able to get around that feeling on weekends, which is great, but if I don't lift before work, it takes a whole lot of mental energy to stay on top of the workday with a good attitude.  I've had coworkers say to me "No workout today?" because it's that pronounced; I'd like to say I'm getting better at it and maturing to the point where I don't let it affect me like that... but I'm not, and it's a whole lot easier for me to just not skip a workout than it is to skip one and then deal with the fallout.  But there's another emotion that I routinely find driving my workouts, and it can definitely seem strange: Fear.

Durf's Weekly Workout # 20: June 11th, 2021

Things are finally, slowly starting to open back up after fifteen months of pandemic (I know, it feels like fifteen years).  The Durfette and I went golfing with her dad and his girlfriend when they were in town, and then we went to a local restaurant, sat on the patio, and had a glass of wine.  I went into the coffee shop that I stop in after grocery shopping, and didn't wear a mask as I picked up my americano to go.  We had friends over - in person - for a barbecue.  Major league sports are operating with full crowds, which may not be the best example, because they would have done that all last year if local governments hadn't forced them to put safety above profit.  We still have a ways to go (and it would certainly help if everyone got on board), but for now things are certainly trending back toward normalcy.  And the icing on that long-delayed cake has been trickling out of the baker's bag for the past couple of weeks: real, in-person, honest to Dio concert announcements.

Durf's Weekly Workout # 19: June 4th, 2021

Last week was one of those weeks where every second seemed to be packed to the gills with stuff to do.  My job was working ten hour days in the hopes of getting Friday off to make it a four day Memorial Day weekend (we succeeded).  The Durfette saw her job kick into overdrive in her second week back from maternity leave, and one or both of the Durflings decided it would be fun to bring a little head cold home from daycare.  Additionally, the Durfette's dad and his girlfriend came in for the weekend, so there was a lot of work to be done to get the house ready to host people who aren't used to living in the squalor that is two children under three.  So yeah, that's why you didn't get a Durf's Weekly Workout last week; honestly I'm amazed I had the energy to wake up and lift.  But after a terrific Memorial Day Weekend, I'm feeling well-rested (which will last about an hour, I imagine) and ready to go, so now we're back and hopefully better than ever.  Of course, I'm still writing this at the last minute, and then I spent too much time writing about a very surprising album, so some of these entries may be a little short.  Don't let that deter you.  Onward!

Durf's Weekly Workout # 18: May 21st, 2021

I mentioned a couple weeks ago that I've been dealing with another Crohn's flare up recently.  I wrote about my Crohn's disease in more detail a few years ago, and since that post nothing and everything has changed regarding my disease and my approach to treating it.  However, after getting out of the hospital eight weeks ago, I felt like I wasn't quite healing as fast as I had in the past, despite a pretty high dose of prednisone (and also tramadol, which I felt was highly unnecessary, and didn't really take).  So I thought about it, and did some research, and kept thinking, and kept reading, and then took some pretty drastic steps, all in the name of health. 

Durf's Weekly Workout # 17: May 14th, 2021

Next week is the Durfette's last week of maternity leave.  Aside from being amazed that it's already been almost three months since The Durfling Strikes Back was born, this means that I'm going to have to stop being a deadbeat during the week and help out when he wakes up and needs to eat.  So far, I've been taking weekends to let the Durfette get some uninterrupted sleep then, and she's been doing the week so that I can get a good night's sleep before work, but now the schedule is being upended.  And you know what that means: It's time to change up my workout routine!

Durf's Weekly Workout # 16: May 7, 2021

When I first decided to do this post every week, the idea was simple: I wanted to listen to more music than I had in years past, and I wanted to write more.  Durf's Weekly Workout is literally just the easiest way for me to do both, incorporating music and writing into my already daily routine of working out.  So now that it's been almost four months, I figured it was time for a check-in from me/update for you on how that's all working out.

As of April 30th, I had listened to 164 albums, EPs, splits, and singles; by the time you read this, there's a very solid chance that I've surpassed my 2020 total of 176 albums listened to.  So it's hard to complain about anything there.  I was curious when I began this quest as to whether or not increasing my musical intake would just lead to my listening to more trash, but quite the opposite has happened.  Sure, there's been a few duds, but the amount of solid or great music that I've listened to this year is almost overwhelming.  My fears of not finding anything new by listening to more music appear to be as dumb as they sound; there is SO MUCH great music being produced right now, and so it makes perfect sense that listening to more music in general would reveal more of that great stuff to me.  I've also become a lot more open to a few genres (hello, grindcore!) that I've normally shied away from, which is definitely a cool feeling.

Durf's Weekly Workout # 15: April 30th, 2021

This was one of those weeks where I have absolutely no idea how I got to five workouts, let alone how I found time to write about the five albums I listened to while getting those workouts in.  Small miracles, man, small miracles.  Anyway, because of that, I'm skimping on this intro a little, by which I mean it's now over already, and we're on to the lifts and music!

Durf's Weekly Workout # 14: April 23rd, 2021

A couple of weeks ago, I was minding my own business, doing nothing in particular, when I stumbled across this.  I was intrigued, and then confused, because it all seemed so familiar, and yet so different.  I feel like there's already a pretty definitive blog dedicated to workouts and metal, I just can't quite remember where.  Maybe I should ask Decibel about it; they clearly found this other, superior blog post and then tweaked the idea to fit their needs...

Durf's Weekly Workout # 12: April 9th, 2021

It's April, which means baseball is back!  This is two-thirds a big deal for us at Brutalitopia, where a full 66.6% of us are huge baseball fans; Tom loves his Mets, I'm a diehard Tigers fan, and Mick is fully content to spend summer waiting for Bears season to start.  I'm always excited to watch as much baseball as possible, something that I'm sure I will not have to change or adjust at all this year despite my overwhelming sense of having absolutely no time for anything whatsoever.  Maybe I can convince work to pay me to stay home and watch baseball instead of, like, building things onsite.  A boy can dream.

Durf's Weekly Workout # 11: April 2, 2021

You know, when March started and I found myself with a second kid and a scheduled vasectomy and a work schedule approaching 55 or more hours a week, I said to myself "You can do this."  And, shockingly, by and large I've managed to, in fact, do this.  I'm pretty proud of myself, except now is the part where I say that of all the things I thought would drop from these posts over the last month, the last one I expected was this little blurb up top.  I figured I'd always have something to say, always want to shoot my mouth off about something, but that hasn't been the case.  These entry paragraphs have, in fact, been the absolute hardest part of this whole endeavor, and I woke up at 2am three times this week because I had to be at work early and still wanted to lift.  It's crazy how that happens.  And so, in the vein of cutting myself some slack, I hereby declare the intro paragraph over, and the music paragraphs beginning.  Onward!