My Bio

I was asked by our company heads to come up with a bio for use on our website and all literature. They told me to briefly outline my experience and job functions. Well, in case you didnt know it, I have a very active imagination and can be quite creative when the opportunity arises. Below is submittal, verbatim. Granted, I did allow them the flexibility to modify and truncate the bio as needed to fir their model. But if you ask me, I dont think any changes at all are necessary.

The Nixican started in the chilling business with technotrans 7 years ago. With over 17 years of mechanical design experience he is responsible for the chilling cabinet design and layout and maintains the bridge between engineering and manufacturing. Essentially he is the spinal cord of the company carrying signals from the brain (sales, marketing, engineering) to the body (production and manufacturing). Without him the company would have to blow through a straw to get different things done. As our youngest and most attractive employee Nick creates and maintains a fresh perspective on system design and aesthetics. He also enjoys long walks on the beach and his favorite color is blue. He is currently listening to “I’ve Seen All Good People” by Yes.

Nick’s Crossfit Year One in Review.

My name is Nick Cruz and I’m Crossfitaholic.

The Setup:

I started Crossfitting when I came back from my 5 year anniversary trip to Hawaii. I had heard about Crossfit from some friends who knew someone on the SEAL team and it sounded really intriguing to me. I told myself that I would look it up further after I came back from Hawaii. Before I left for Hawaii I weighed in at 220. I knew I was not in shape but didn’t realize how out of shape I was until I saw the pictures. I would look in the mirror and try to convince myself that I wasn’t that fat. My diet consisted of lots of crap (burgers every day, pizza, sugar laden coffee drinks etc), lots of alcohol (I would finish a handle of Captain Morgan and at least a 12 pack of soda every weekend – disclaimer: I had help- , and would have a large tumbler of whiskey almost every night). I started going to the gym before my trip but I would not say that I had a strength background. I wakeboard on occasion, and I go snowboarding in the winter. One year prior I had torn my right ACL in half and ripped some of my MCL while wakeboarding. Looking back on it, I know that I injured myself because of the lack of strength around my knee. Now, one year later, with a cadaver Achilles tendon in place, I could hardly go past parallel on a squat (not that I knew what a squat was at this time) without REALLY making my knee hurt.

Initiation:

My first workout was Tabata something else. I was completely humiliated! I couldn’t do the pull-ups and I wrote down that I should have only done half of the excersizes. After that horrifying eye opener I discovered Brand X’s website (brandxmartialarts.com) and their scaling protocols. I also spent every waking free minute that I had downloading videos, reading the forum, asking stupid questions ( I still do this) and soaking in everything. On a side note, I still can’t believe how gracious the corporate Crossfit organization is. Nearly every day a new high quality video is posted that aides in developing your form and serves as motivation to get some and go again. I have about 4 gigs of videos downloaded to my work computer with probably that same amount or more at home! For free!! Incredible!

Crawling:

Every time a WOD came up with a new movement that I was not familiar with (pretty much every WOD) I studied the slideshows and played and replayed the videos until I was sure that I understood it. Then I would practice the motions in front of the mirror in the bathroom at work (fortunately, there was a lock on the door). I can only imagine what people thought I was doing in there when they heard me stomping the ground as I went down into the catch! I remember being really humiliated by the OH Squat. I racked a bar and pushed it overhead thinking “This is too light, maybe I should add some weight.” Boy, I’m glad I didn’t. As soon as I went down so did the bar, except that the bar went forward and made an awful racket in the gym. Mental note: Practice OH Squat with PVC at home.

Physical Differences:

Almost immediately into Crossfit I started shedding weight like I was throwing off a winter coat. Everyone that I came across thought that something was wrong with me or that I was sick. I was called “skinny”, “gaunt”, etc., etc. If not for the positive strength gains that I was experiencing the comments would have made me self-conscious and self-doubting. But I pressed on. Every week I dropped 2-3 lbs or so. I measured my weight every day and every day a new lower number would pop up on the scale. I would hit plateaus but no more than 1 week went by without some change in weight. At this point the only diet changes that I had made were cutting out the alcohol and snacking on raw almonds and raisins instead of chips, pretzels and M&M’s. In addition to the weight loss I was experiencing gains in strength and endurance. I was starting to be able to run distances greater than 50 meters, and I was slowly weaning myself off of the pull-up / dip assistance machine.

Switching it up:

When I got to about month 6 I had bottomed out at 176 pounds! For those of you keeping track that is a loss of 44 lbs! Now I started to think that I was about as low as I really wanted to be. Not to mention that when I started Crossfit I only anticipated dropping below 200 pounds! However, at this point I was lacking raw physical strength. I could not do the weighted WOD’s without scaling the weight considerably and my first Crossfit Total score on Dec 3, 06 was a measly 535 (205 BS, 135 Press, 195 DL). That’s when I decided, after much lurking, to finally jump into the Zone Diet. At around month 8 I purchased Journal # 21 and dove head first into it. After checking my requirements via Dr. Sears’ calculator I came up with a diet of 19 blocks. However, because of my desire to gain lean muscle mass I added 3x-5x fat to my meals. In addition to the diet change I started up with Coach Rut’s ME Black Box program. My weight bumped up to 184, my body fat percentage stayed about the same (based on mirror calculations) and my strength numbers started to climb! My last Crossfit Total done at the Crossfit Games topped out at 650 (225 BS, 140 press, 285 DL)!

Conclusion:

I have, to date, run 2 10k’s, one was the World Famous Mud Run at Camp Pendleton, competed in the first ever Crossfit Games, regained full ROM in my right knee, and have become so damn sexy I turn myself on when I look in the mirror! I am an absolute Crossfit fanatic! Right now I train with 2 friends of mine, have gotten a couple of other people into Crossfit and have been toying with the idea of getting my cert, if for nothing else to just increase my own experience and knowledge into what physical fitness SHOULD BE. Who knows, maybe I’ll turn this into a full-fledged affiliation! Hell, If I had the money and time I would follow the seminars around the country like a rock-band groupie. I am really looking forward to the coming years and am always on the prowl for some new event or activity to get involved in. I recently starting bouldering and have a desire to get into mountain biking. Who knows where I will be in 1 year. One thing is for sure though. In one year I will be even stronger and more fit that I am today! Thank you for taking the time to read this. I hope that it will somehow encourage someone , somewhere to take charge of their own physical fitness and really go for it.

Nick

Taken just before starting Crossfit Ewwww! And yes, it hurt like a son-of-a bitch! I would not recommend it to ANYONE! Somehow my wife was able to capture the EXACT moment the needle hit a network of nerves!

Ahh, much better!

Note: Links will take you to my Picassa Web Albums. The first one is of a trip my wife and I took to Hawaii. The second is from the 1st annual Crossfit Games.

The Police

Just a quick review of the supposed "Concert of a Lifetime!!!!" I'm going to say it right here and right now....It was ok. Thats right! It was just OK. Definitely NOT worth the 800 I dropped on it (funny story forthcoming). Susan and I took JT with us because we wanted his first concert to be something that he would remember for a long time. Who knows what kind of shit he is going to be listening to when he gets older. Right now he loves listening to The Police, Rush, Van Halen, Bach, Beethoven, you know, utter classics. Not this bullshit whiny EMO tripe that is so prevalent on todays dials (or presets). Anyways, we saw the show at the Arrowhead Pond Honda Center and we got there early enough to see Sting's son Joe Sumner play in his band Fiction Plane. In my attempt at a lame play on words I give you this.... I am being very non-fictional when I say that this band is very plain (har, har, har). Ficton Plane did not stand out at all and could have been anyone. While Joe does have an incredible voice he just did not shine nor set himself apart from any of the other bands out there. Have I mentioned that I HATE it when a band bitches and moans about everything under the sun? Yeah, well I hate it when bands bitch and moan their way to the bank and back to their mansions up in the foothills. Anyways, the only thing that distracted me from Joe's band was Joe's incessant need to continually jump off of things and kick his legs in a lame attempt to emulate his father. Stop being so gay Joe, learn to play some better stuff and when you really get the crowd going, THEN jump off of your speakers or drum platform. Its kind of like trying to use the Rock Start tilt in Guitar Hero 2 BEFORE THE CROWD IS PUMPED UP!

On to the Police. First, for most of the show we had to endure a really awful drunken show by some over the hill hag and her friend that sat in front of us. There are certainly some people that should NOT be wearing hot pants, stilleto heels and thong underwear. Have you ever saw something so hideous that you could not look away. Like a horrible car accident or a brutal execution? It was something like that, EVERY freaking time she stood up and sat down. Not only that, but when they were standing they would dance facing AWAY from the stage, WTF? Sit the fuck down and watch the show, or at least dont dance to every song like you had a pole in front of you!! I feel worse for my son as at least I could look forward toward the stage because I was tall enough to do so. We had to keep moving JT around so he didn't have hag ass in his face the whole time! GAH!

Ok, calm down there. On to the music! Right off the bat I will give this handicap to the Police, they have not played in front of a crowd in 24 years and this was there 3rd performance so I expected some hiccups as they tried to find their groove. As a band it took The Police a little while before it actually looked like they were enjoying themselves. Sting was very much a showman, and he knew how to act in front of the crowd and knew how to get the crowd going. Sting, after all, really never stopped touring and is used to being in front of large crowds. Andy Summers was a different story. I read a review somewhere that called his playing "muddied" and thats exactly how I would describe it. Some of his solos were more aptly suited for a thrash metal concert that one in which the musicians are top notch. I couldn't find fault with Stewart Copeland but, some reviewers thought that he was sometimes disconnected and not on top of his game. I love watching drummers. I really dig the facial expressions and life that most of them breathe into a concert. In this regard, Mr Copeland did not fail to impress. He had his main drum set out in front and a pretty cool array of percussion and chime instruments behind and to the side. Watching him go back and forth between them was truly a fun show in and of itself!

We truly enjoyed ourselves, but I think the expectations were really high and The Police just did not quite make it up that high. The other problem was that I lost ALOT of money on this show. When I went to buy tickets I ended up with 3 sets. I did this because while buying them online I kept refreshing Ticketmaster and finding better and better seats. I figured that because this was to be THE concert of the year, I would have NO problems reselling the tickets. At 330, 330, 820 I was on the hook for nearly 1500 dollars!! So, I listed the tickets for sale and was able to get 200 for one set and only 500 for the other set. I could not even sell these tickets AT FACE VALUE! So, I went to the concert with a price tag of 780 dollars! And my seats were up in section 400 at the far end of the stadium. HORSESHIT!!! But wait it gets better!!! The guy that I sold the 200 dollar tickets to got kicked out of the show because shithead decided to somehow scam my tickets from Ebay and resold them on Ticketmaster exchange. So, I, being extremely honest and an all around swell guy, refunded my buyer his full 200.00 PLUS parking. We are still fighting with Ticketmaster, Ebay, and Honda Center regarding this and HOPEFULLY, I get my money back. I am not holding my breather however. So, now, this show cost me 980!!!! At least I got free parking!

So, thats my review. We had a good time, but it definitely was NOT worth 1000.00!!!!!!

How do you work this thing?

Ive finally bitten the bullet and decided to get my thoughts down onto paper, or whatever the hell this is considered. I will use this space as a place for me to keep track of my progress in my current game of life. I will track my performance in Crossfit (more on that later), any competitions I enter, any big events that I happen to attend, Ill probably brag about my family and how rich I am because of them.

To start off with, I have been doing Crossfit for 1 year now. If you dont know what Crossfit is then you need to get educated! http://www.crossfit.com/cf-info/what-crossfit.html . This program, and Coach Glassman and all the Crossfit elites, and all of the Crossfit community is why I am where I am. I started Crossfit at 220 in a size 38 and not doing jack shit. Now, I am down to 183, have built a starter home gym complete with plyobox, bumper plates, pullups bar (strong enough for kipping) and gymnastics rings. I can bust out pullups like noones business, I have run two 10k's in the last 2 months, I can deadlift 1-1/2 times my weight, squat 220 (measly I know, but seeing as I sarted out at barely 150 this is huge for me!), I am entering a weightlifting / run competition next week and Ive only just begun!

I work out with two of my best friends who happened to be married to each other edit: man and woman. We are trying to convince my wife to get into but she is pretty content right now with running and not getting "all hardcore" with us quite yet. Give it time though, she will come around eventually.

Ok, thats enough for now. I will update this with info about the Police concert I went to, the Mudrun that I ran, the Little League that I became president of, and my new love... Eric Clapton Edition Stratocaster!