Category: Blatherings

Imagine this scenario:

You are doing some laundry in the shared laundry room in your apartment building. You put your load in the wash, come down right when it is done, and put it in the dryer. You come back down, again, right on time, only to find the laundry room door locked. You don’t have a key to this room, and you never have. What would YOU do?

1) Write a note on the door asking someone to open it.
2) Break the door.

Well, I did #1. I came back down every hour or so to see if someone had opened the door. When I came down at 11pm, I found a broken door.

Sure, a locked laundry room door sucks, but why the hell would you break it? I mean, come on. Wait until it is open, and then maybe duct tape the latch hole. I would be really interested to know which one of my neighbors broke the door.

In other news, it has been decided (by me) that my eyebrows are not “large;” rather, they are “stately:”

That’s how I put it on my calendar anyway.

Anyone that happens to be in San Francisco tonight and wants to have a good time, head down to Temple (Howard and 2nd) to catch Dieselboy tearing it up. $10.

And just like that…no more meat from land animals. This is going to be hard. I <3 chicken.

After a week of dieting again, I am right on schedule for my weight loss. I started last week at 172.5 and I am at 170.5 now. But when you’re dealing with a half pound here and a half pound there, you can easily get off track with just one screw-up. That’s why I am going to institute a new system of punishments for myself should I get off track for even one day. Basically, for each day that I am above my target weight, I am going to cut one of the following out of my diet for the remainder of the diet:
– dairy
– meat from land animals (of course the only ones I am eating anyway are chicken and turkey)
– egg-based products (like mayonnaise, which has been in several tuna sandwiches that I’ve had)
– meat from sea creatures

That will give me extra incentive to be good. If I am essentially a vegan by the end of the diet, it’ll be weird!

So the idea here is, I’d better stay ahead of my goal because if I don’t there is a good chance that I’ll be behind one day. And just like that – no more chicken and turkey! That really would limit my Subway options.

Since Monday I have been cold turkey on all those things I mentioned before. The first day was brutal, when I had a headache that was probably caused by my body yearning for all the crap I had been putting into it up until that time. But the rest of the week has been great. I have been running every night since Tuesday. I’ve lost 2.5 pounds just since Monday! Woohoo!

And the best indicator, to me, that I am doing something right was how I felt when I woke up this morning. Usually I am groggy as hell and I want to just go back to sleep. But this morning, not only did I wake up a few minutes earlier than usual (this is a big accomplishment for me), but I felt GREAT when I woke up.

Obviously at some point I am going to eat steak, french fries, pizza, and ice cream again. And obviously I am not going to go running every night indefinitely. But I think after this little diet I will have to set some guidelines for myself for regular habit. Because this feeling is just too good to only have when I am dieting…

Oh, and one more thing I discovered – A great apple can really make your morning.

I’m a little thrown off right now. Things just don’t feel normal. It’s probably because so many things are different this week.

I am in Santa Clara for three days this week. Yesterday, I woke up at 5:55, took the bus to work, got a couple things, took the bus to Caltrain, took Caltrain to Santa Clara, and took VTA light rail to Foundry Networks headquarters. And then sat in a class for 8 hours and did almost the reverse on the way home.

Also yesterday, I started another diet. It is my “sprint to the end” diet. Since being about 167 pounds (and that one marvelous day when I was dehydrated and the scale read 165) I have put on about 5 pounds and am back to 172. I want to make a habit of completing my New Year’s resolutions, so my goal is to lose 7 pounds by December 23. That is about a pound every four days. So I’ll be cold turkey from the following until that point (except for one night with some friends, which was already being planned):
– red meat. Just my luck – the caterers today at Foundry served meatloaf! No main course for me!
– sweets. Just my luck – All the soda and junk you want for free at Foundry!
– cheese. I <3 cheese.
– fried things

So yeah, that sudden shock to my body (I think it was mostly not having the fat content I am used to, but it may have been the sugar, too) gave me an annoying headache yesterday. It was no migraine, thankfully, just a run of the mill headache that happened to last the whole damn day.

And then last night after I got home from that long day I had to flesh out and practice my speech that I am giving on Chomsky’s ideas in speech class tonight. Another thing that was out of the ordinary.

And then today, so I can get to class on time tonight, I took City CarShare to Santa Clara. And let’s just say I don’t miss ONE BIT sitting in stop and go traffic. That has to be like the 7th circle of hell or something.

Tomorrow is the last day of training, and then Thursday and Friday should be back to normal with the usual wake up, work, do something after work (class, some event, etc.), go home, sleep, repeat routine. It may not be the most exciting thing in the world but it makes me less stressed, I think.

My buddy Peter is letting me long-term borrow his bike. It is a single-speed road bike. I definitely like it…I’d rather have a multi-speed bike, but beggars can’t be choosers!

Today I took the bike for its first serious ride. I’ve already bragged to a couple people about my ride…but I’ll post it here anyway. I mapped it out in Google Maps. From my apartment, to the main library, to SFSU, and back to my apartment. 17 miles in all! Very tiring, but it was nice, too.

I am looking forward to my next ride, although it may not be 17 miles. I think I’d like to ride along the coast. Also, I am not sure how practical the bike will be for trips longer than a couple miles, because I worked up a serious sweat. It was great, though, just getting to the main library to start with. It’s the fastest I have ever gotten there, I think, and by the time I got there I wasn’t terribly sweaty.