August 5th Stroll

Weight: Unknown (and will remain that way until America)

Main Exercise: Walking (about 40:00)

Today was special and different in the sense that I had company this morning. Mrs. Rastall, 90 pounds of fury in all her glory, wanted to tag along. Since I don’t get enough chances to talk to her as it is, I put aside my audiobook and acquiesced to her request to join me.

Typically this wouldn’t happen, I’m a lone wolf in the morning. That or a grumpy pain in the ass. There’s a lot of self-talk in my mornings. Although I like coffee in the mornings, I don’t like it before working out and usually it’s something I looked forward to in mornings once I got into the office. Regardless, I like a long runway where I’m able to gently be woken up. Some people like to be fucked rough in the morning, but that isn’t me. So Saori came along.

Our pace seemed slow. Her smartwatch said we only traveled one kilometer in half an hour. You almost must try to be that slow. I wasn’t so sore as I was nursing a chapped inner thigh. Gold Bond with the methanol tangy after affect isn’t exactly a thing in Japan. Saori came home with some literal baby powder. It was fragrance free too. To drive home this bad story, it was presented in a tin can and now a plastic puff bottle. Some parts of Japan I will not miss. A&D Ointment was a worthy substitute.

It was raining intermittently yesterday which would explain why I didn’t work out. It gave me a chance to look over a damp landscape this morning and it did not disappoint me.

Knocking Off Rust

Weight: Unknown (my scale was broken in the pack-out and Saori’s scale out of batteries)

Main Exercise: Walk (55:57)

Now that I am back from Australia, it is time to get serious about my fitness, again. My homecoming included a dual birthday party for Atticus and Oliver. Many people came to enjoy the celebration with us. Paired with all the traveling and airport food, the bounty of edible joys was not in short supply.

My first morning back in Japan I woke up before everyone else in the house. That is still my favorite thing to do, and I hope to continue that. With the boys only getting older, it’s becoming easier to wake up before them. Saori was up late hosting her brother and wife so she was not getting at 0630 when her alarm sounded off. I did though.

Rolling out of bed, I found my morning journal amongst my other unpacked belongings. I will most certainly lose count the number of times that sea bag is unloaded and repacked. Each time though I decide on a thing or two more that will not make the next leg of the journey. My coyote brown boots were the latest decision. I went downstairs to write at the kitchen table. It was therapeutic to jot a few lines.

What I notices more than anything was how stiff I was. From walking down the stairs to putting my shoes on, it was all difficult for me. A clear sign how bad things have gotten. Knowing my body and still believing I have a hidden athlete within me, I wanted to start SLOW. That meant just walking.

The trip didn’t take 300 meters before I could feel it in my lower back. My ankles were just as weak. I’ve said it many times before “how the mighty has fallen.” Luck would grant me a real engaging audiobook to listen to, but there was nothing easy about my walk for me.

It was nice to take in the Arita, Japan sights again. I will miss this little pocket of Japan, truly the Shire of my life. I had time to think. I thought about the future of this website, the next steps of this international transition, my family, and what I want to value. Making deals with myself the kind of pain I will go through to achieve what I truly desire.

For now, I intend to use this week to just walk. Maybe by the end of the week I’ll include some inclines such as hills. Maybe in the evenings I’ll do some pushups and get kind of soreness over with. When I get back to Wisconsin is when I project to really kick it up a notch and in the meantime use this time to reflect and appreciate what I have and admire the journey ahead.

Change Like Pimpin, Ain’t Easy

I am officially off of the ship. Be careful what you wish for right? When people enter a different or other part of life, they typically reward themselves with something. Like a gift for themselves. If the writing on this post seems extra off or peculiar, it is for a good reason. My gift is a bunch of short-term contemporary pain.

One of the best parts about being a pharmacy technician, and one in small remote oversea clinics around Japan, is that I was in charge of supply. All the drugs which came in and out was probably accomplished by me. Although it wasn’t the same day, but shortly after little Josiah around 2017 gave me my chewing spitter was about the time I realized that I needed some changes in my life.

Dipping tobacco was a great past time. It is how I made friends, some of my most fond memories are connected to my times while dipping. Being passed your spitter though by your infant child was certainly a wake-up call though. Changes needed to happen. That is how I began using nicorette gum as my replacement. This was the time before vaping was posh, or in existence. Chewing had to go, and smoking was more expensive and smelled worse. Chewing nicotine gum was a) free (for me), socially acceptable, and an endless supply since I was the who ordered it. I figured as long as I was good enough at my job then my leadership won’t ask why so many cases of Nicorette was being ordered. I was right.

In the beginning there was a more learning involved than I thought. For starters, I had to memorize which brands had the best flavor, but the best flavor left my lips yellow. I had needed to know which brands were the most cost effective so in case I was squeezed I could argue most bang of the buck.

I knew this wasn’t going to last forever, so when I was transitioning to Afghanistan, I quit then too. Quit for a few weeks, until we got to actual Afghanistan and I started smoking again. The look of disappointment on some role model face’s was hard enough. When I was back home in Sasebo after the deployment, I went straight back to chewing the gum. That was consistent from 2015-2025, I had to write that out to amaze my own eyes, I’ve been using a tool to “ween” me off nicotine for 10 years.

Using my time in Brisbane before I fly home, leveraging the six days to my advantage of going through the withdrawls is do far the plan. As I write this I am on day two. My morning wasn’t actually too bad on the second day, but this afternoon is really catching up. I don’t feel normal. I feel anxious, like something is missing. My head is not a headache, but not without feeling either. I’m not as funny or clear-headed right now. I can feel it. My ambition is gone and I look forward to feeling normal again.

It is safe to say I didn’t exactly like who I was was while I was using Nicotine gum. Having a vice in my mouth for almost every waking hour I was awake was in a way, sad. Nicotine replacement can get very costly, especially when addicted as I was. Using Zyn was not an option because of the cost, and returning to smoking was not an option. Get through these three or four days of misery, convince myself and self-identify that I am NOT a gum user, it should be easy. Right?

Each Day is a Gift

First written on July 20, 2025

As my time on the USS AMERICA (LHA 6) winds to a close, and by the time this publishes will be over, I get to spend a lot of time reflecting. If there is one thing my chain of command did well, it was pull responsibilities from me in order to wind down. For better or worse and the motivations behind that decision, it's only up to me to now do what the time that is given to me.

I sit in my office and think how I want to frame the rest of my life. I don't have the deep vision like Arnold where I know I'm going to be Mr. Olympia, then dominate Hollywood, and marry royalty as he sat at his modest post-WWII Austrian bedroom desk. There a definite plot points I want to hit along the journey, and I know how I want the story to end, but the route is a bit of a mystery still. That's okay with me, for now.

The framing I just spoke of hinges on the most simplistic principles I can find because the more complicated a mantra is the more caveats it will require. "One Day, or Day One" is a closely held favorite. It's important to me because a large part of me believes that much of my life was placed on hold to serve on this ship. Whether or not that is totally true remains subjective, but this website would need to be exhibit A as what was sacrificed in order to serve.

In other posts I've talked about inspiration and how it is everywhere. You just have to pay attention. The Greatest Showman (2017) is a film that really speaks to me. It resonates about a man who yearns to do more with their life and will not settle in mediocrity. This feeling has been with me for some time, my high school graduation quote was something I picked up in 7th grade, "Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.- Albert Einstein." In some circles PT Barnum was a hack, a fraud, a glorified con man, and around some campfires they'd be right. What I admire about the movie though was a guy had a "million dreams" and he didn't settle. There was a fire, some dawg in him that needed to get out to serve a higher purpose. Hugh Jackman does an excellent job, to me, in projecting that yearning.

So now that my time is nearly over, I must begin Day One because One Day is so long in the making. Each day of consistency, normalcy, and expectant is a gift because I lived first hand what that life was like without those ingredients to a fulfilling life. I did what I could, did some cool things along the way, but not nearly within the scope of my capabilities. My ambitions have been festering, I need to live out my dreams and "From Now On" I will stand up and be the man I know I can be. My days in the incubator are over, and it's up to me to be the Greatest Showman of my own life.

It starts in the gym, it continues with rebuilding my relationship with my family, and it will continue to these passion projects such as my writing and the mission of this website. As my guy Teddy Roosevelt said, "I must remake my body," and I believe the rest can fall into place.