Archives June 2007

I woke up this morning in an oddly good mood, especially considering that it is full moon time again.  I dunno things just seemed good.  I had an interesting little project at work I was wrapping up today, I had some projects on the planner for the weekend that will be worthwhile, next week I have Wednesday off for 4th of July, I am doing a 300 work out today and Ali was going to the Wellness Center to join and was planning on doing a few of the group classes.  It all added up to a feel good kind of thing.

Speaking of feel good, I have certain articles of clothing that just make me feel good when I wear them.  A lot of my big sweatshirts do that for me, although since moving to Florida I don’t have a lot of opportunity to wear them.  I have many t-shirts that are in the inner circle of favorite clothes.  I have had a new recent addition to the comfort clothes group.  It is the long sleeve t-shirt Mom bought at Kennedy Space Center to wear to stave off frostbite.  She wouldn’t normally wear something like that so after the visit she gave it to me.  For some reason I just love wearing it, especially after doing some sort of hard physical activity.  Many times after my 300 workout I will take off the sweat soaked shirt I was wearing and throw on the KSC shirt. It just makes me feel good for some reason.

Tonight after work we are driving all the way up to Sarasota to meet Ali’s friend and husband for dinner at Carraba’s.  They are down for a week in Orlando so we are meeting somewhere around half way.   A 3 hour round trip for dinner is rather insane but Ali agreed to do it and although I complained quite a bit, I agreed to go with.  Ali would do it for me if I asked so it is only fair.

Today is my brother Todd’s birthday.  He is 37.  I am not sure what is more shocking, me being on the cusp of 40 or Todd being right on my heels.  Todd has really been revelling in his role as a father and has built the business he took over from my dad into something very profitable.  I’m proud of him.

In the middle of the night I was woken out of my slumber by the increasingly loud, rhythmic sound of a cat preparing to throw up.  I could hear the noise coming from around the door to our bedroom.  I strained to see in the darkness and could see the silhouette of the cat.  I quickly feel around for a pillow and in one whip-like motion, hurl it at the cat.  My aim was true and the cat ran outside the room and then threw up right outside the door instead, a small victory.  I may start keeping a small pile of rocks on my nightstand.

When I got up this morning I knew I had at least one vomit pile to clean up.  However true to form, vomit never travels alone, there were two more piles on the far side of the room as well.  Nothing brings a smile to my face quicker than cleaning up vomit first thing in the morning.  It really puts a spring in my step.

In the span of 24 hours I had to trim my bushy eyebrows, take a scissors to the unending bushes of nose hair and then use a tweezer to pull an inch and a half long hair from my ear lobe. 

Last night after work I felt very wiped.  I was extremely tired.  I slept through the night once again which is encouraging.

Ali got the official word that she would be kept as a consultant at her facility, albeit at greatly reduced amount of hours, which is pretty much exactly what she wanted.  She also will be putting the word out to pick up ad lib consulting jobs for other facilities.  She knows a lot of people that can help her get the word out.  On the down side, she will lose her office at the building and Nicki won’t be able to go with her in to work.  Her last official day as an “employee” is next Thursday.  She is very excited about her new impending freedom.

I am out of my normal protein shake stuff so until my shipment arrives I am using up some old packs of stuff we had lying around.  The first one I tried was “berry flavor”. Once I shook it up it looked like vomit, complete with little chunks of “fruit” in it.  It tasted only slightly better than it looked.  I could only take a couple swigs of it before I couldn’t stand it anymore and dumped it.

So I washed out my cup and grabbed a different kind, Lean body FOR HER.  It is stuff we got Ali awhile back but she didn’t like the taste of it.  So anyway I fill my cup with water, dump the stuff in but then get distracted for a couple minutes doing something else.  I finish up what I am doing, pick up the cup and start shaking.  I didn’t put the lid on tight!  Water and protein powder explode out of the cup all over my desk, my keys, my cell phone, my pants and my keyboard.  The cell phone was most concerning so I immediately picked it up and wiped it off the best I could.  The rest of the tedious clean up took a solid 15 minutes. 

I’m lucky it wasn’t worse.  I have my laptop on the desk but luckily the direction of the fluid and the subsequent splash just missed it. 

Well I am back at work and feel better, although I still am weak.  No 300 until at least Friday.  I slept through the night last night although I had some problems falling asleep initially.  I stayed up till 11 watching part of Rocky V.

During my time home yesterday I spent some time feeling sorry for myself.  I was thinking about how it is unbelievable that I am going to be 40 YEARS OLD in a few months.  It just seems surreal to me.  I thought about my state of being.  I am financially secure, have a house in a desirable area to live, a pool, a dog, a wife, nice car, blah, blah, blah.  Minus the kids, all the stuff average Joe blow guy is supposed to strive for I guess.

 But I see other people my age and they seem so much more mature than I am.  It freaks me out sometimes.  Am I really just a slacker that doesn’t want to accept the weight of being a responsible adult that plans families, retirement strategies and aging gracefully?   

I think these thoughts all come from the fact that I have no major goals to push for right now to distract me from the descent into the 2nd half of life….  

It was a weekend of illness.  It started on Friday night.  I woke up around 4am and then was unable to fall back asleep.  Although my body was very tired, my mind refused to cooperate.  My head was filled with random, meaningless garbage that was firing off non-stop, I was unable to clear my head.  I couldn’t get comfortable either, no position felt good and I tried everyone imaginable.  So I laid there in bed wide awake with my eyes closed until maybe 7 in the morning. 

So I got up, still feeling disoriented.  I told Ali how I felt weird and she said it sounded like symptoms from dehydration.  I went out to the kitchen but did not do my normal cat maintenance routine.  I was really f’d up in the head.  I had no motivation to do anything, I felt exhausted and confused.  I grabbed pop tarts and milk and sat on the sofa and had them while staring blankly at the wall.  There was a big cat vomit mess on the floor that I could do nothing about.  Ali came out and cleaned it up. 

I literally felt like a zombie.  Ali had me drink some water as well.  During the night I also started having sweats followed by chills.  I would feel like I was in a sauna and then shortly afterward have the covers pulled up to my neck, freezing.  I had all this stuff I wanted to get done on Saturday and I realized that absolutely none of it was going to happen, I was just wrecked.

The entire day consisted me eating next to nothing, passing out/sleeping at various spots around the house and just feeling miserable.  Sitting up was work, I couldn’t do it for long.  Standing and walking was worse and would lead to an immediate hot flash.  Ali gave me a Tylenol PM to help me sleep, I think it added to the already dense fog that was around me.  I was so drained I didn’t even sit in front of the computer the entire day, now that is sick…

By the time Saturday night came I felt slightly more awake.  I had crackers for dinner and was able to give myself a shower.  I even forced myself to stay awake to watch the Ultimate Fighter 3 hour finale.  On Saturday night the insane images stopped flipping through my mind and I was able to get some sleep.

On Sunday I was still very weak but not paralyzed like I felt for most of Saturday.  But now whatever bug was hammering me moved into my gut.  The day was filled with horrific bathroom episodes that were just disgusting.  I lit our Yankee Candle in a pointless attempt to make the house smell better.  Luckily for Ali she had to go into work for a portion of the day.  I still didn’t have much of an appetite but ate more than the day before.

I passed the time watching the first two Godfather’s well most of them.  I was pissed to discover that the 2nd one cut off two hours into a three hour movie.  The first one was good.  What I saw of second was good except for all the flashback shit.  All of the flashback was done in Italian which was maddening.  I found it so annoying that we were supposed to guess what they were saying.  I will have to get the full 2nd movie to see the ending even though I went online and got the summary version.  Out of the recent mob movies I have seen, Good Fellas, Scarface and the Godfathers, I would rank them in that order, with Godfather being third.  All the Italian and Marlin Brando mumbling most of his lines just made it annoying at times for me to follow.

So anyway, by Sunday night I was hoping to have a good night’s rest and be able to go to work today. (no I’m not at work)  Instead it was a night from hell.  I woke up sometime between 1 and 2am and could not fall back asleep to save my life.  Again my mind was short circuiting, throwing up images and scenery non-stop, refusing to allow me to drift off.  It was maddening.  I woke up this morning exhausted, yet unable to lay it that damn bed a minute longer.  I called in to work and hope to be able to get some actual sleep during the day today.

I will probably wind up doing some chores around the house that Ali didn’t get done over the weekend.  She had procrastination mode turned up to high for some reason.  I will never understand how it is better to put something off to the very last minute so you have to bust ass like crazy at the end of a weekend or not get it done at all because you pushed it off so long.      

Randall was kind enough to double check my 300 math, maybe my illness was already setting in on Friday as I totally screwed up the numbers. Eh he is an accountant, he would pick this out…

I’m gonna have to audit your numbers old friend. You’re physical prowess may be Spartan-like but your math is terrible.

Pull ups – original reps – 13 Current reps – 20 = +35% (Should be +53%. 7/13 = .53)

Dead lifts – original reps – 25 Current reps – 45 = +45% (+80%)

Push ups – original reps – 25 Current reps – 50 = +50% (+100%)

Box jumps – original reps – 17 Current reps – 34 = +50% (+100%)

Wipers – original reps – 15 Current reps – 33 = +65% (+120%)

One arm C&P – original reps – 26 Current reps – 50 = +48% (+92%)

Last set pull ups – original reps – 10 Current reps – 14 = +40% (This one you got right!)

Total reps – original – 156 Current – 271 = +42% (+73% increase in total reps. +88% increase if you don’t count the extra pushups)

I had a 6 rep bump today in my 300 workout, the largest increase in awhile.  I’m only 5 reps away from the dead lift target.  I’m only 5 reps away from the first set of pull ups goal as well, but that one will take much longer to hit than the dead lifts.  The dead lifts have been an exercise I have increased slowly but consistently, I always have done at least one more rep each time.  I was looking at the increases in my numbers since I started and wanted to put some cold numbers to it.

Pull ups – original reps – 13  Current reps – 20 = +35%

Dead lifts – original reps – 25  Current reps – 45 = +45%

Push ups – original reps – 25  Current reps – 50 = +50%

Box jumps – original reps – 17  Current reps – 34 = +50%

Wipers – original reps – 15  Current reps – 33 = +65%

One arm C&P – original reps – 26  Current reps – 50 = +48%

Last set pull ups – original reps – 10  Current reps – 14 = +40%

 Total reps – original – 156 Current – 271 = +42%

The 300 program started April 2nd so this is in the span of just short of 11 weeks.  The numbers show good progress.  There isn’t a huge way to go as far as numbers go, but those last few numbers are going to come slow, especially the wipers.  I am at my physical limit every time I do them.

Today we had someone come out to give us an estimate for solar heating of our pool AND hot water heater. We would be able to keep our current electric pool heater as well, only using it when we want to do something crazy like power heat the pool when it is 50 degrees outside.

  I was surprised at the number they came back with, it was actually lower than I expected.  On top of that, there are approximately 2k of rebates we get from the state and federal governments for installing a system like this.  Of course until Ali’s new working situation becomes solid, we aren’t going to do anything.  But if her consulting works out, I can see us moving on this before the year is out.  It would save us a nice chunk on our electric bill. 

My sister commented on my entry yesterday about being brittle.

Dude! You are a FREAK! You are not BRITTLE, you are NEUROTIC!!! There is a distinct difference. Get a grip, eat a freakin’ steak, and perhaps stop working out like you are going into battle with thousands of Persians and you might feel better!!!

I would like to clarify, I am not preparing to go into battle with a few thousand Persians, it’s a MILLION PERSIANS!

My sister Torrin and I get along well nowadays.  When we were younger however, she was the target of torment by me.  Todd and I used to come up with many names for Torrin to piss her off.  I remember for awhile we were calling her Leonard for some reason.  It made no sense but it made her mad so we kept using it.  The most famous and most nonsensical nickname we ever came up for her was “Leechbonefangsmellers”  Don’t ask me to remember the details of where that combination came from, but boy did she hate it.

This weekend has no big highlights in it.  I have a bunch to do around the house and we may go out to the movies over the weekend.  I have Godfather 1 and 2 to watch as well.   

I woke up this morning with a nasty pain inside my left knee.  Even though all I did at the gym yesterday was non-impact cardio, evidently I did it at an intensity level high enough to aggravate things.  This aggravates me.  I’m brittle.

Nothing else to say.

In my latest attempt at chic geek, I am posting this entry wirelessly, via bluetooth connection from my pc thru my Treo 650, out to the net.  It is pretty damn cool.  What this means is if I have my laptop, my cellphone and signal, I’m plugged in.  Of course it is far from speedy, no one will ever confuse it with cable modem speeds but it is very workable.  When we take our trip out west it will be a way for us to stay plugged in even as we are trucking down highways.

I don’t quite understand why everyone is taking a shit on Kelly Clarkson’s new stuff, the two songs I heard, I liked.  It almost seems like an intentional smear campaign.  She snubbed the traditional music brass and they put out the word to talk down the record.  I heard she is really bummed out about all the negative reviews and has been packing on the pounds like mad, emotional eating at it’s finest.  It sucks, she is a very talented singer IMO.   Hopefully she isn’t setting up to be the next Brittany Spears (although Brittany can’t sing nearly as well)