Here is your Zeke Peek into a week (actually 2) of phase 3 of lock down easing and the slow, careful return to my swashbuckling adventure I call a life. It is not all back to normal, nor will it be for a while, but I have fared pretty well during a global health and economic crisis. Getting back to the things I like to do is not a huge rush as I would rather be conservative and careful, but I definitely enjoy them as they come.

Straps on your adventure undies and lets check out what I have been up to.

It was a couple weeks of @actifit highlight reels and #wednesdaywalk for sure. The weather is nice and starting to cool a little so it makes for nice mild days and cool nights good for sleeping. I almost wish every month was the last half of August because I like walking barefoot in the yard, shoed in the town square by city hall, and with spikes on the golf course.

Speaking of the golf course, I did manage to get a couple rounds in! Those keeping track will notice that this is more golf than each of the prior 5 years in the course of a couple weeks. What a joy to be in the middle of launching a brand new platform for a business still in its first year of operation, and build into that a weekly golf outing with the team. If you make all the sacrifices to run your own business and build a culture, you sure as hell should build in a little rewarding fun in it for you and the team.

This was a putt that I actually made to save par (which only happens a few times a round.) Now that I look back on this picture, I recall hitting those wires a few holes later and totally screwing up a perfect drive. Still, a bad day on the course is better than a good one in the office.

More along the lines of getting back to normal, my favourite pubs have started letting people in again. It is true I am fine with drinking a pint or 2 at home but sometimes you have to get out and valiantly support your local businesses!

This one is at a pub I have blogged about a few times as it was owned by a close friend of mine. As it turns out, he sold this pub right before the pandemic shut everything down to concentrate on his other restaurant. So he new owner buys another pub, does renovations, and gets told to shut it down to contain a pandemic. Then, the city relaxes laws so that he can have a patio out on the sidewalk so that people can return again. Then, the house right next to the pub (surprisingly a low rent group of apartments that are homes to a few skids) catches fire and is condemned so he has to close the bar another week.

I have a couple friends that still work here and my little one had not been to a restaurant in 6 months so we paid a visit. Love those IPAs and Irish Nachos!

That wasn't the end of my restaurant experience either! I had a great business lunch at another place and decided I should get back to normal with a little @tasteem review. Sure this is not STEEM anymore bus surely they are still in business no? No. My buddy @slobberchops has the inside scoop of their trouble with the transition, the mutiny with STEEM, and the screwing with the delegations that powered @tasteem.

Can't stop me though so I made my very own independent review here https://hive.blog/food/@zekepickleman/mercer-beer-hall-a-zeke-hive-review-c and tried to structure it as a little nostalgia for the other @tasteem users I have come to know. This shot is one of my strongly patented Dramatic Extreme Close-ups meant to bring you right to the edge of my plate and imagine the other patrons ridiculing me for being a food-photographing hipster. Portobello mushroom burger was as delisious as that pic might suggest.

I am sitting on a flower-heavy #gardenjournal post for @simplymike and the other green thumbs and homesteaders on Hive. While I am harvesting bumper crops of tomatoes of all sorts, green beans, carrots and starting to get lots of cucumbers, these little sweet berries are making the chicks as happy. I love how the flowers pop up to help the pollinators and then turn into one of dozens of strawberries my little one loves. Because we think her strawberry allergy to the store bought ones may have come from the pesticides, this is a new lease on enjoyment of these and I suspect the carrot/strawberry box will become 100% strawberry patch for years to come.

Another of the back-to-normal developments I have been patiently waiting for as I get fatter, is the reopening of the Brazilian Jiu Jitsu academy. Newer followers may not know that I am a purple belt in BJJ and have been training for a good number of years. I posted a series of videos back on STEEM of the entire white belt instructional curriculum for people to enjoy....and hopefully decide to train.

6 months of not training this rigorous and brain challenging workout has left me soft. Sure I have been active but there is nothing like an intense warmup, learning new techniques and submissions, and sparring at full intensity against other fighters who study and practice as hard as you do.

This week, we returned to training with changes you can even see in the image. I will put together a post to give you a little more insight into this experience. I was so happy to be one of the members who returned to training on the first day of reopening and hopefully the 6 months rest puts me back in the mix with a renewed passion.

I would probably have a mutiny on my hands if I didn't mention beer as part o the weekly routine and a return to normal. I have enjoyed this one for a few years when introduced to it by one of my local beer enthusiasts. IT always came in a big brown 650ml bottle though and was something I picked up as a treat. Now, they have apparently released them in my preferred 500ml cans.

I have the second half of my exploration into new beers to cover this #beersaturday but you can check out the first half here https://hive.blog/beersaturday/@zekepickleman/zeke-s-sweet-hops-endings-and-beginnings-beersaturday

This week has started off with a bang and I don't have a second to sit down til Thursday because of business meetings, jobs to be done, and a return to training. This is an encouraging sign in general but I am so jammed the next few days that anything extra wanting to force itself into my schedule (which often happens) might upset the apple cart. When I am at the other end of this looking back next week, I should have new clients, more success, the soreness of BJJ again and a happy soul if it all works out.

Wish me luck!

I am honoured to curate for:

Link your Weekly in comments and let me know if things are getting back to normal where you are!