In My Right Mind

Hello friends. It's been a little while. I was meaning for my next blog to be a new "Cooking with Ben Jammin", but I got a whopping zero recipes. A few people told me they had something good for me to try, but nobody followed through and actually sent me anything, so I just didn't eat for the last month. K maybe not quite, if you know me, you know I ate, and probably ate a lot. I'll give you a second chance though, send in those meal ideas, especially if you think I won't be able to cook it. If I screw up, that's just good reality tv, right?

Send ideas to

bsaxto@gmail.com

Exclamation point!

So instead of a fun little video, I'm going to torture you and make you actually read something instead. All about my exciting life over the last month. Now I may have thrown you with the word exciting just now, because actually, when I'm not on tour, life is all about routine. I do the same thing day after day. On the long days there's up to 7 hours of physical activity. On the other long days there's up to 24 hours of tired and sore muscles. And on yet other long days there's nothing to do so I have tv show marathons, but the latter don't come quite as often as the others. To summarize, a lot of long physical days, with a rest day here and there.

So how do I not go crazy? Well, some might say it's too late for that, I went crazy long ago. Which accounts for most of my entertainment. But when insanity just isn't good enough, I go to my reserve activities. Like I mentioned earlier, getting lost in a good tv series can help to pass some time, and I've watched my fair share. I don't watch too many movies, because then what will I do on plane rides over the summer? Then there's books of course, speaking of which, I've updated Benny's blog again, it was a long time coming. Then there's games. Games of all kinds, shapes, sizes, strategies, objectives, or competitiveness. Whenever I'm not playing a game, I'll often make a game out of whatever I'm doing. For instance lately, whenever I have a little ways worth of walking to do, I try to see how many steps along the sidewalk I can take with my eyes closed before I either too scared of crashing and have to open them, or else actually crash. My record is 28 without cheating. I would say try it, but if I do, someone might wander into the street, so I won't encourage it.

Fellow National Beach Volleyballer Martin Reader and I playing a game at six flags a few years back

Games are my favorite way to pass the time. So it's no wonder I play a game for a living, and have done so for the past 13 or so years without getting sick of it.

Get those recipes in! 

You!

Recipes!

bsaxto@gmail.com

Do it!

Cheers,

Ben Jammin

A rude awakening

Happy New Year! To friends, family, and my muscles (or lack thereof). Hope everyone's holidays were as enjoyable as my own.

Don't you just love getting back into the gym after a couple weeks of diminished workload? The first day is always great, your body  feels fresh and you're excited to get started again.You feel like you should push extra hard because you can. You think, What a great start to the year, this season is gonna be a breeze. 


Then comes day 2.
Your whole body aches, if you hadn't already scheduled your gym time for the next few months you would spend the next week in an ice bath. Stairs seem taller, walks seem longer, lifting your arms is a brutal chore. You think, - scratch that, you don't think, it's too hard.

Maybe I exaggerate slightly, but after working muscles that haven't been used in a while it's always quite the wake up call that training isn't all fun and games. With the new year, my sand training has resumed, so don't get me wrong, it is fun, and there are games. But through the first week of sand and physical training together, I'll just say it was no picnic taking that first step out of bed on the morning of day two.

As tight as my muscles get though, I don't despair because of a few aches and pains. If I did, what kind of athlete would I be? In fact, I actually take solace in the fact that the more sore I get, the more I will benefit in the future. No pain, no gain, right? I've already almost passed out and thrown up in the gym this year, and I still came in the next day to do it all over again. On the stiffness front, the first week is always the worst, so it's all downhill from here. But that won't stop me from pushing to my limit, day after day. There will undoubtedly be more pain to overcome, and to grow from.

On a side note, my physical trainer, Thomas Lam, has been bugging me about posting another "Cooking with Ben Jammin" video. So I'm gonna let people get involved here. If you have a favorite recipe, that you'd like to see me cook, or at least attempt to, then you can send it to me. I'll give my best attempt to the recipe that most catches my eye, but also looks delicious. I probably won't be making peanut butter and kraft dinner or add 18 layers of bacon and Jack Daniels or anything like that. Something unique, or a different sort of cooking process, or if your friend made something that you thought was amazing, ask if I can use their recipe. Heck, if I get enough idea's, maybe I'll make it into a little series.  Email meal idea's to: bsaxto@gmail.com with the subject: Recipe.

Atlas the Snowman

Well it wasn't my best work, and unfortunately, thanks to strong winds and oddly enough, above zero temperatures in Calgary, it didn't last for very long. But after roughly 9 hours of work, I finished my snowy version of Atlas the Greek mythical character who holds up the earth. The movie jumps here and there when I took breaks, but otherwise, Enjoy!

Cheers,
Ben Jammin