Some bad news, some good news

First, the bad news. I have come to the conclusion that I have zero willpower when it comes to food. When me and DAPGF go out, I eat all the bad stuff. Pasta, lots of dressing on the salad, lots of bread before the food, lots of dipping sauces, etc. And during the day...can a brother get a freaking muzzle? And it's not like we have a vending machine or something right by the office. No...I have to drive over to the deli to get my snack on, or worse, I run thru a nearby drive-thru. I suck, and it shows. My weight has exploded over this past week, such to the point that I am embarrassed. Suffice to say, I hit my all-time (knowing) weight Tuesday morning. That afternoon, I hit a major combination of depression and motivation. I was at the bank, and while standing in line I saw myself in the security monitor they had on the counter. WTF?!?!? What Happened To Me? (Hey! Catchy blog name!).

Now the good news. Last week, Exercise TV was non-functional on my cable system. Don't know why, and neither does Time-Warner. I did make it to the gym over the weekend, but most of last week was spent preparing for Valentine's Day, thus preventing me from getting to the gym. This week has been better in both aspects. I've managed to get a shorty workout in after the morning doggy walk, and I've made it to the gym on the nights that DAPGF teaches. The other thing, I discovered what could be (at least to me) considered miracle foods. According to the crap I've read (Men's Heath, etc.), eating foods with protein help you feel fuller longer. For the most part, my snacks have consisted of various reduced fat chips and crackers (Gardetto's, Wheat Thins, etc.), which have been very low in protein, high in carbs, and waaaay too "munchable". Gum and hard candy don't work, because I'm looking for something saltier, not sweeter. So the miracle snack foods. First, Kashi's Chewy Snack bars, specifically the Peanut/Peanut Butter one. There's not a lot of taste (it is Kashi, after all), but each bar is only 140 cal, 5 g fat (45 cal from fat), only 19g carbs, and 7g protein. The taste is generally nutty/oat-ey (is that a word?), with a hint of peanut butter. Overall it strikes a good balance, and does a decent job of satisfying the munchie need. The second one is Beef (or Turkey) Jerky. One of the decent-sized bags you can buy at the store (4 oz) contains 4 good sized servings. Frankly, I can spread one serving out over a morning and be perfectly happy. The downside is it tends to be higher in sodium, but who doesn't like a good salt lick every now and then? But each 1 oz serving (one morning, and most importantly one afternoon) contains 80 cal, only 1g fat (10 cal from fat), only 8g carbs, and 11g protein! These stats are for Oberto's Teriyaki Beef Jerky, but the other flavors and the turkey variants are all similar. Tuesday afternoon was the first shot at eating it, and it seemed to work. Wednesday I had it both in the morning and afternoon, and it did a great job of satisfying my need to chew on something for a while. Good stuff. Hopefully the scale will start to descend into much friendlier territory.

Go ahead and hate me. I don't care. I have this...

To continue Wil Wheaton's meme, I offer this photo. This was shot by yours truly, at around 12:30 p.m. today, at Powerhouse Park in Del Mar. The waves look small, but really the park area sits 15 or so feet above the beach, and a couple hundred yards back. Just thought I'd share. Go ahead and hate me. I'll just throw the sunroof back and crank up the stereo.

On the other hand, I think we can all be glad that we're not this poor soul. Look at these pictures, and be happy that this isn't your car. More pictures can be found at the link. Have a great weekend, everybody!

The United States of WTF?

Many of you (many? can't be more than one or two of you left, these days) know that I play online poker. Some of you are likely aware of the problems that eWallet sites (similar to PayPal) that work with online gaming sites are having. In case you're not aware, the biggest eWallet that worked with all the gaming sites was called Neteller, and they're based somewhere in the UK, I believe, and they're traded on the London Stock Exchange. They probably handled 60% or more of all the online gambling transactions, especially poker. Recently, the federal goverment arrested two of the founding members, who did nothing more these days than sit on the board, for wire fraud, money laundering, etc etc, all because they were stupid enough to step onto US soil. That one action has had a huge ripple thru the online poker industry. Most of the eWallets have either shut down entirely, or prohibited US-based customers from utilitzing their services, and several of the online casinos have pulled out of the US market. The Department of Justice has also seized almost $55 million from Neteller, money that actually belongs to the individual account holders. My buddy Troll has a little bit of money he can't access because the account is frozen. Another poker blogger was playing a live tournament in Los Angeles recently. He got to talking to the people at his table, and between four of them they had over $55,000 tied up by Neteller. So now that I've gotten my non-poker blogging audience somewhat up to speed, (with apologies to Paul Harvey) here's the rest of the story.

I presume most of you have heard about Bank of America, and their decision to allow undocumented aliens to open bank accounts, credit cards and mortgages. Things that make you go huh? According to B of A, they are trying to service the ever growing Hispanic market. Fine. Service those here in this country legally. Technically, and I'd really need a lawyer to back me up on this, I would think that anybody at B of A either connected to this policy, or connected to the implementation of this policy could be found guilty of aiding and abetting criminals. I mean, it IS a crime to be in the country illegally, right? But ok, let's move beyond Bank of Attitude (yes I used to bank there, years ago, and Attitude is right...customer service sucks, apparently unless you're in the country illegally).

We have our beloved federal government prosecuting two former employees of a foreign company, one (I believe) located in another country who happens to be one of our strongest allies, and indirectly persecuting those of us who play poker and otherwise gamb00l online all in the name of fraud prevention and prevention of terrorism. Noble goals, and one can certainly understand the government of these here United States of America wanting to protect herself and her citizens from these crimes. But they're not going after a financial institution, one of the largest financial institutions, for proudly publicizing that they don't require a valid US-issued identification card (like a Social Security Card, a Drivers License, or a Passport/Visa) to grant bank accounts and credit. Hmmm. Sounds like fraud to me. And one of the other benefits that B of A trumpets is that people who open these accounts can wire money from their account to Mexico for free! Just try and find a bank willing to do that for you, especially without proper identification. But that sure seems like it would be conducive to money laundering, and would be very well-suited to (let's just say here, not that I'm trying to stereotype...just using a prevalent example) a radical Imam at an Islamic mosque laundering money for terrorism. Again, I'm not saying they all do this, just using the example. This Imam extolls his parishoners to donate money to the Jihad against the West, against Israel, whomever. Much in the same fashion as Irish Republican Army "representatives" would do in countless bar back rooms in Boston and other areas (just to be fair). Because B of A doesn't require proper documentation to open an account, what's to stop this Imam, one of his parishoners, or whomever (an undocumented worker? they're easy to find here in So Cal) to open an account at B of A. Even to further hide the paper trail, money deposited could even be wired into an account in Mexico (it can't be that difficult to open an account down there), and THEN have the money wired into yet a 3rd bank, maybe in the Cayman Islands or something. Either way, it sure seems like an easy method to finance terrorism. And our federal government is going after an internet business based somewhere in the UK, I believe, not to mention cutting us off from online gambling (except for appropriately state sponsored methods, like lottery and horse racing). Am I alone in thinking that our government's priorities are kinda, what's the word I'm looking for, oh yeah, FUCKED UP BEYOND ALL RECOGNITION?!?!?!?!

Some positive, and some negative

Sorry for the delay in posting, but it's been a crazy week. Work has been a mix of busy and not, but something I alluded to previously has cropped up again. I mentioned that I have no privacy in my office, so keeping Blogger open for posting and such isn't really an option. The posts that I've sent up during the day have been sneaky: I type up the post in MS Word, and then open the Dashboard, copy and paste, touch up any hyperlinks or pics, and elbow and send. Unfortunately, my boss informed us that our corporate IT masters up in Sacramento have installed software on all of our computers (our company is very wired) that tracks our internet usage. And my boss wasn't telling us that in a fashion that said that he was watching us. Rather, he informed us that he wasn't even checking HIS personal email from his work computer. So blogging at work, even at lunch is not the best move. Still, work has been going relatively well. I still feel as though I'm being under-utilized (they don't have enough work yet for me to have a full workload), so it's a delicate line to walk, looking busy and being able to fill out an honest time sheet (I do consulting work, so I have to account for my time in 15 minute increments because it's all billable), while knowing that I've got enough work that I could honestly take 3 solid days and be done with it, if that. So I fluff things out, make it look as though I'm busier than I am, and hope that some of our proposals get accepted. A consultant's life, regardless of the field, isn't always great. And more to the point, combine that with gym and poker after work, Valentine's Day shopping, and honeydew stuff (honey, when you get home can you do this...), and I haven't had much time to blog.

The mornings have even been busy, and I only weighed myself a couple of days this past week. Nothing exciting out of those days, but this week hasn't been good. We had a company thing one day that involved going to our wonderful local brewpub for munchies and adult beverages, which didn't help things at all. I've done some shorty workouts off of Exercise TV, but I haven't had the time to do anything longer than 10 minutes at a time (besides the dog walks). And to top it off, because Dear and Patient GF teaches in the evenings, we did Valentine's Day this weekend. Great food, but not good for the waistline. Monday morning's weigh-in is not expected to be pretty.

Still, things seem to be going fairly well in that department. DAPGF has been going thru some rough times with work, but she's made a point of reaching out to me both in asking for help and to apologize for some "chilly" behavior on her part (I never said anything, knowing that it wasn't me, but work that was thowing her off balance), and things just seem to be going really well.

So there you have it. Diet and weight aren't great, but I think I bought the right stuff at the grocery store over the weekend. Work isn't bad, just kind of awkward for now. And life with GF is pretty good. All in all, I'll give myself a solid "not bad".

Assorted thoughts and updates

I recently downloaded Windows Media Player 10, because a video I downloaded needed some updated plug-in or something. It is pretty sweet, has a great music functionality and a very well integrated rip feature. I've never been a fan of iTunes, and I don't have an iPod so I figured that I'll just use WMP 10 as my music interface, at least until I cave in and get an iPod. I might get a Zune, though. I played with one the other week at the store, and it was pretty sweet. Anyway, while GF is out teaching, I don't want to watch Gray's Anatomy without her (thank you DVR), so I'm ripping a bunch of my CDs to the computer. I just got done with a late 80s metal band album, Perfect Symmetry by Fates Warning. Those guys were so ahead of the game technically. I mean, the music is great in and of itself, but it is so technical that if you have any musical knowledge, it is pretty sweet to listen to the non-standard timing and progressions. Combine that with some of the best full digital production to come out of the 80s (those of you old enough will remember that the first CDs were "AAD", which meant it was: Analog recording, Analog mixing, and Digital mastering), and you've got a phenomenal musical experience, IMHO. Punchy guitars, tight drums, perfectly crisp cymbals, and ultra-clear vocals. Good stuff.

Anyway, on to the point of this thing. I'm not going to bother going into detail on weight and food consumption between my last diet post of 1/8 and my post of 1/30. Suffice to say, I yo-yo'ed in pretty much the same range I've been in since March. High of 283.4 lbs and low of 279.0 lbs. Same old same old. Since then, however, I actually have some data to provide:

1/30 - 282.2 lbs and 36.6% body fat (7:30 a.m. weigh-in). I caved in and had a breakfast burrito, and noshed a little more than I should've while playing poker. Still, I did do one of the Exercise On Demand TV sessions for about a half hour, so I like to think I at least made up for my food naughtiness.

1/31 - 282.2 lbs and 38.5% body fat (7:30 a.m. weigh-in). Weight stayed the same but the bf went up. Haven't a clue as to why. Oh well. Dog walks were really quick due to rain, but I did get another TV exercise session in while GF was teaching. Nothing exciting about the food intake.

2/1 - 282.4 lbs and 35.8% body fat (7:30 a.m. weigh-in). Up by .2 lbs and down by 2.7% body fat. Again, don't get it. Meh. Breakfast was good, but lunch was baaaad. I had Thai from this place near my office (as I've said before, I'm a sucker for Asian food), and it was sooooo good. Dinner was reasonable and I did another TV workout. They may not be a full gym workout, but they are a helluva lot easier to deal with then driving to the gym, driving around for another 10 minutes looking for parking, and then waiting to use just about every single machine that I want to use.

I'm hoping that I can start to build some consistency, but this weekend isn't going to help things. My company is doing their annual party, and they're flying all employees not located within driving distance of Sacramento, plus spouses/significant others, up for the weekend and putting us up at the Sheraton Grand. Swanky dinner, hosted bar, casino night, I'm not too optomistic. Still, we shall see. If the hotel has a gym (and I don't know why they wouldn't) I'll see if I can't get in for a workout. Until then...