Rehab is pretty standard now, but it was the first time without the brace so I was a little anxious.  Rode 10 minutes on the bike, got my knee massaged and straightened, did squats, squats on the half exercise-ball, static lunges, and hamstring curls with the exercise ball.  The front of my knee was pretty sore after the static lunges and the back was sore after the hamstring curls on the exercise ball.  The physical therapist said I need to strengthen my hamstrings.  He gave me a new regime of exercises. 

Here’s my exercises: bike or elliptical, squats, static lunges, squat stepups, and two versions of hamstring curls.  Now that the brace is off, the next steps are to get hyperextension and 130 degree range of motion in my knee.  We’ll see how this goes. 

In general, ESPN does a pretty good job so I’m going to give them a mulligan on this one.  Let’s just crown some “town” Titletown and move on to something else.

What do you do to pass this dull time?  I could use a few good suggestions!

After about 10 minutes of pain, I did some leg raises in a circular motion on my back and side.  Once that was done, I did some leg curls, static lunges, and squat heel taps.  Hopefully next week when I see the surgeon, I’ll be able to get rid of the brace! 

Don’t get me wrong, the 2008 All-Star Game was great, unless your name was Dan Uggla, but it should only go 9 innings max.  If the game is tied after 9 innings, I got the solution.  Each team puts together its best 9 man lineup, trots a BP pitcher out there, and each batter in the lineup gets one out.  The team with the most HRs wins the game.  Now that would be a fun thing to watch!

I’d take a flyer on Ryan Braun as well. I heard a rumor that Ichiro was asked to be in the contest.  If he were in the contest, I’d pick Ichiro to win it all; I would have loved to see him spray home runs around the park. 

Even though I’m not against Rail as an alternative, I am against it as the choice right now.  I don’t think we’ve done enough to exhaust all of our other less intrusive alternatives to Rail.  Things like staggering work hours, 4-day work weeks, working closer to home, telecommuting, moving businesses out to Kapolei, and/or moving the entire UH campus out to West Oahu. 

Before I move on to our alternative, I’d like to take some time to state that rising oil prices is a great thing for America.  Most people understand that oil isn’t going to be around forever, but yet we’ve done very little to develop sustainable energy sources.  Rising oil prices are now forcing us to roll up our sleeves and do what we do best, create and innovate! Someone’s moved our cheese and it’s high time we start looking for new cheese. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, go read “Who Moved My Cheese?” by Spencer Johnson.  Sustainable energy = Bye Bye War.

Now that I’m done with that, we can move on to our vision; creating a college area out in West Oahu or Kapolei by moving the entire UH campus out there.  We could build a new 40k capacity stadium surrounded by skyscrapers, which would house students, food facilities, classrooms, librarys, computer labs, etc.  Surrounding the stadium and skyscrapers would be businesses, stores, hotels, bars, restaurants, etc.  Students wouldn’t have to leave the area during the work week, everything is right there.

This vision is going to cost a pretty penny, but there are a lot of positives.  The state already owns the land in West Oahu so we wouldn’t have to kick people out.  UH and Aloha stadium are in dire need of renovations so we can kill two birds with one stone.  A college area will make it more enticing for businesses to move out there.  There is a lot of infrastructure that has to be built, but it’s only in one area so it won’t affect the beauty of Hawaii or disrupt traffic during the process. 

This is our vision, how would you spend roughly $4 billion?

I finished up with some bodyweight squats, leg raises, and 10 minutes on the elliptical.  A decent first day back.  I need to build my endurance back up; the good thing was my strength wasn’t too far down.

I took my bodyfat percentage using a caliper and the Suprailiac measurement, which is one inch above my right hipbone; not good.  I was anywhere between 18-24% bodyfat.  This is the most bodyfat I’ve carried since I can remember.  Time to start dieting and hitting the gym!

My calf and hamstring are feeling a little better everyday, but I keep banging my knee on things.  I shut the door on it, hit it on a low table, etc.  My knee pain and swelling have stabilized; hopefully the pain and swelling will start going down.  I’ve been elevating my leg about twice a day.

I won’t be able to go to rehab again on Wednesday either.  We’ll see what happens next week after a week of no supervised rehab.