Take what you can get!

So. Last Friday I blobbed in at 292 lbs. By Monday I was down to 289 lbs. By Thursday, I'd managed to drop all the way down to 287.4 lbs. Frankly, I attributed my progress this week to working out and generally controlling my lunch. Until Thursday. I hadn't had a chance to get to the store, so I had no breakfast-y stuff in the house. So I hit Subway for one of their Bacon Omelet flatbread sandwiches. Not bad for 500-ish calories, but more than the Jimmy Dean 250 cal Ham and Cheese Omelet that I would've otherwise had. Likewise, I didn't have any lunch-y foods around, so I ordered out. I attempted to be good, and went to a salad place called Croutons. The food is fresh, tasty, and seems pretty quality. I had their lunch combo which consisted of a small size grilled chicken breast salad and a half panini sandwich. Mine was bbq chicken. The meal was yummy, and for the quantity was probably not too bad calorically. For the quantity. But as I've proved via Souplantation, if you eat enough of anything, you'll eventually gain weight. To top it off, DAPGF won tickets to the House of Blues to see Springsteen: The Premiere Tribute Band (their name) open up for Lights: The Ultimate Tribute to Journey (again, their name). The show was good, but it involved much drinking. We didn't eat a whole lot of food, which at the time was good but by the time we got home, we were both hungry. Pringles generally are not a wholesome food...a yummy and convenient one definitely, but not a wholesome food. And I paid for it with a weigh in this morning of 288.8 lbs. So I gained 1.4 lbs from Thursday to Friday. It's not a major concern, because from Friday to Friday I dropped 3.2 lbs! Yay me!!

3.2 lbs sounds like a decent number. For next Friday, I'm going to aim for another 3.2 lb drop, which would put me at 285.6 lbs. Wish me luck and have a great weekend.

The One In Which We Cross a Threshold

Wow! It's been a while since I posted. Bad Hoff! Bad, naughty Hoff! I am deserving of a spanking. And then the oral sex!

But seriously folks, it has been a while, and I have positive news to report! When last we checked in, I was aiming for a weigh-in on 6/22 of 276.9 lbs. The week had been my usual up and down, peaking at 278.2 on Friday 6/20. But with DAPGF out of town, I was able to make some headway and drop down to 276.2 lbs for Saturday! Saturday did involve time with Dad and some naughty food, but I was able to use the rest of the time on Saturday for beach and gym, and made my weigh-in on Sunday at 276.2 lbs.! No gain from Saturday and I bettered my goal by more than a half pound!

With that success, my goal for 6/29 would be 274.7 lbs. That would represent my first foray under 275 lbs since I can remember. Looking way (weigh?) back at things, this weight-loss thing all got started when I realized that my scale was broken (insert fat jokes here). For whatever reason the scale (an old-school mechanical dial one) would read no higher than 260-ish pounds (the dial actually went to 300 lbs). Despite the fact that my clothes were seeming much tighter and my gut seemed larger, it hadn't dawned on me that the scale continuing to read 262 lbs wasn't indicative of a problem. I jut figured I'd only gained 10 or so pounds from the Newport Beach and Aliso Viejo days, and as I aged the weight was redistributing itself into my gut. Yeah, wishful thinking. So one morning I get on the scale and notice that as it spins up, instead of doing the typical "needle back and forth until it settles" routine, it simply stopped in the 260 neighborhood. With no idea how long it had been broken, I went and bought the new scale, and promptly realized that I was up in the 280s! Holy crap! But beyond the obvious horror, I had no idea how long I'd been that fat. So with that knowledge, that last bout of food poisoning was the last time I'd knowingly been in the 275 lb range.

So I'm starting at 276.2 lbs and aiming for 274.7 lbs on 6/29. The week was again my typical yo-yo experience, and I actually peaked at 278.8 during the week. Still, I fought and fought and managed to do a weigh-in of 276.2 lbs on 6/29. No change from the previous week, but given the 2.6 pound increase during the week, I'll take it.

So, again, I'm aiming for 274.7 lbs on 7/6. Again, the week was a typical yo-yo with an added wrinkle. I'm no longer riding the train, so I no longer get my thrice weekly bonus exercise walk to the train station. To make it worse, my new gig is with a brand new client who is still setting up their offices. So I didn't really even have a good opportunity to bring a Lean Cuisine type lunch. Nope, everybody wanted to go to the naughty Mexican joint nearby. But I didn't want to have two straight weeks with no progress, so I was careful with what I ate. DAPGF had a meeting to go to one evening, and she went out for lunch with friends on Saturday, so I had good opportunities to hit the gym and avoid restaurants. End result? Weigh-in on 7/6 was 274.6 lbs!! I beat my goal by .1 lb, and I was under 275 for the first time in well over a year!!! Can a brother get a woo hoo!!! Next Sunday, 7/13, the goal will be 273.1 lbs.

One thing that should help with meeting my next goal (and I'm sure helped out this past week) is my gym. Not that 24 Hour Fitness is really anything special, but they just got some new elliptical machines in, and boy are they difficult. The key thing about them is they have a variable stride to them, and because of that you have to work extra hard to keep up a constant stride. You get going and get yourself into a steady pace. All of a sudden, the "incline" or speed of the machine changes, and unconsciously your stride changes. God forbid you decide to reverse and go backwards. It is hella hard, and a brutal workout. With the old elliptical machines, I could bang out a half hour workout, on resistance level 11, and be sweating but hardly breathing heavily. With these new machines, I spend so much effort trying to maintain a consistent, steady pace and stride that I find myself winded after 12 minutes. I think, tbough, that the extra effort makes up the difference and probably then some. I will keep you advised as to whether I give up on them or not. Wish me luck.

And to finish off this long overdue post, instead of the last 5 songs I heard at the gym this morning, let's go with the first 5 songs...which ones served to pump me up. I added a bunch of tracks to the mp3 player, so I manually created a playlist, started with one particular song, and shuffled the rest. I was not disappointed.

Motley Crue - Kickstart My Heart
AC/DC - Whole Lotta Rosie
Pantera - Mouth For War
Testament - Electric Crown
The Vines - Ride

FWIW, the next 5 were equally motivating:

Megadeth - High Speed Dirt
Iron Maiden - Invaders
Iced Earth - Declaration Day
W.A.S.P. - Blind in Texas
Babylon A.D. - Hammer Swings Down

See ya out there, peeps.

I'm Still Here Dammit!

I suck. I know. This work schedule is really not very blogger-friendly. I have GOT to talk to somebody about this! Anyway...

Jericho returns tonight!! 10 pm ET/PT, 9 in flyover country on your local CBS affiliate. Watch it and don't make me have to send more nuts to CBS again. Climb out of the malaise that is Dance Wars, The Biggest Loser, and Wife Swap. Watch a real show!

Not a helluva lot to report on the weight loss. The train/walking thing is somewhat beneficial, but my snacking habits are not. Curse the vending machines! New tweak to things. Instead of Tuesday mornings, my weekly goal dates are now Wednesday mornings. I'm doing this for two reasons. First, on Tuesday mornings I'm always in a rush to get out of Casa de Hoff in time to get to the train, and second, Monday evening is usually an evening with DAPGF going out to dinner and no real exercise. By moving it to Wednesdays, I'm less rushed in the mornings and might actually be able to write a post before heading off to my typical Wednesday staff meeting, and I have had the benefit of (hopefully) less to eat during the day because I don't bring a cooler bag with lunch in it, as well as the nearly 2 mile jaunt from the office to the Santa Ana train depot. As stated earlier, though, there's not a lot to report. This morning I weighed in at 283.0, a far cry from the 279.6 lbs that I managed to hit on the date of my last post (1/23, what kind of a loser am I?), but as is usually the case with me, it's been a yo-yo experience. I've spent several days from then to now in the 279s, actually 4 times hitting 279.6, and I've ranged up as high as 283.6. You have no idea what I would give for a consistent schedule, where I know I can get a solid amount of exercise every day. No gym tonight, but I did manage to make it to the driving range. Broke the head off of my 5 wood, but that gives me an excuse to look at replacements. This would be acceptable:
Let's see. Brakes for the Jeep? Taxes? Credit Card payments? Nah. I think this is a better idea.

A Taxi Cab Company of Orange County (yes, that's the official name) sucks at dispatching cabs on time. Tuesday and Friday I called for a cab 20 minutes or so ahead of when I wanted it, and 35 minutes ahead of when I NEEDED it, so I could catch my train back to San Diego. The first time the dude was just way too late, and picked me up at the time the train was scheduled to leave. No way to make it. The Friday one, the guy picked me up with what would've been enough time had he known where he was going. Unfortunately, I get the only white cab driver in Santa Ana, and he's apparently the only one who doesn't know where the damn train depot is! We pulled into the bus drop off area because it was closer to the train platform, just in time to see my Amtrak Pacific Surfliner pulling out of the station. Yeah. This was the wrong time of the month to explain to DAPGF (who was being neither D nor P at that point) why we were going to be late going out to dinner and so on. She teaches on Thursday night (Valentine's Day, for those who need the reminder) so we're celebrating on Friday. I think I'm going to leave work early enough to walk to the train depot (which is what I normally do), so that the only way I'll miss the train is if I get run over in a crosswalk or shot in a drive-by.

Last night at the gym, the last 5 songs to come up in the shuffle whilst on the elliptical hamster machine:

Iron Maiden - 2 Minutes to Midnight
Bad Religion - Los Angeles is Burning
Dream Theater - Pull Me Under
LA Guns - Rip and Tear
Stormtroopers of Death (S.O.D.) - Speak English or Die

Had an interesting revelation at the gym over the weekend. Was doing my hamster impression on the elliptical, when Number of the Beast by Iron Maiden shuffled it's way into my bluetooth headphones. Interesting thing about that song. It is far from the "fastest" song that I listen to. That honor would likely go to something by Stormtroopers of Death (probably "Milk" or "Speak English or Die"), or something by Anthrax, Nuclear Assault, Megadeth, or Slayer. But the song is very fast paced. And the problem I had was it was just fast paced enough that I was pushing probably 85 rpm or so, when I normally run at around 70 rpm (a steady 70-ish rpm will get you 2.13 miles over 20 minutes). But it was just at that right speed where I couldn't slow it down and catch a double beat on the stride for some of the superfast songs, so I had to just sprint like a fiend. When I finished, the dude next to me asked what song came on my player, because after 15 minutes of steady I just opened up into a sick sprint. Just something to keep in mind.

Have fun out there, and Stay Classy.

Well let me tell you what has happened to me...

Ok.  So what has happened to me?  In short, I'm lame and I've been busy.   Quick recap?  That's all I've got time for, so for those of you who read The Randomness also, I apologize for regurgitating some of that post here.

 

Weight.  I wish I could say I've been a loser, but sadly that's not the case.   This past two weeks have seen lots of naughty food eaten, and pounds put on.  For the most part they've come back off, but overall, I'm up about a pound and a half from my weigh-in at the last post.   I have managed to get back on track in doing my affirmations, but they don't help much when we have a staff meeting at our branch location.  Yes, I had the Seared Ahi for lunch, which was probably the best option, but I'm sure that wasn't enough to counteract the effects of spinach/artichoke dip, deep fried calamari, and four pints of Stargazer IPA.   Hey.  We're consultants, and we can expense that stuff.  If they're gonna force me to get out of the office on a sunny San Diego afternoon, to go sit on the patio overlooking a huge koi pond while eating righteous seared ahi and drinking killer microbrews, well I guess I'll take one for the team.   Besides the dog walking, just about the only physical activity I'm getting is at work.  Our new office is on the third floor, so I do the stairs, up and down, several times per day.   This past weekend, I did make it to the gym both on Saturday and Sunday mornings, but Wednesday night's gym opportunity fell by the wayside in a minor traffic accident.   Not me, but some idiot on a bicycle trying to snake through stop and go street traffic got clipped by somebody who was making what seemed to be a legal turn into an apartment complex.   The rider looked to be generally ok (he was talking to the responding police officers), but the whole thing (3 cop cars, 1 fire truck, 1 ambulance) completely screwed up my commute and cost me almost an hour in getting home.   By the time I got thru it, the last thing I wanted to do was go to the gym.  Meh.

 

Poker.  Poker has been a cold cold world lately.  My once-growing bankroll has dramatically shrunk over the past few weeks.   There have been one or two instances where I made plays that were stupid, but by and large I've been playing well.  I'm just getting raped on the river, and I don't even live in the South (better?)!   Seriously, it's been almost funny, how predictable it's been.  An example, I follow 2 limpers and limp with my 66 from before the CO (cutoff for you non poker players, the seat before the dealer position, the small blind and the big blind).   5 of us see a flop of Ace-King-6.  Couple of bets and 3 of us see a K fall on the turn.  Schweet.   I've likely got the nuts unless somebody is slowplaying aces, kings, or big slick (AK).  First player to act ("Under the gun" or UTG) bets and a player in middle position (MP) calls.   I call, which puts me all in.  The river is a 7, and UTG shoves and MP calls.  Cards are flipped and UTG was playing A6 for two pairs.   Fine.  MP flips over 77 for his rivered 7s full of Ks, sinking my 6s full.  It's been that kind of run.   Suffice to say I'm taking a minor break to see if I can get out of this funk.  I'm doing pointless things like playing billiards and rummy online (and kicking the computer's ass) to see if I can get back into a winning groove.

 

Movie Review.  Knocked Up was very funny.  Biggest complaint, not getting to see Katherine Heigl's breasticles.  Second biggest complaint, having to see a fake version of her koochie (hey, it's the only word DAPGF finds acceptable, pick your own), in all it's crowning glory in mid birth.   It was even shaved, which I presume is just how she rolls.  The movie was very well done, and hugely humorous (although not quite up to the 40 Year Old Virgin).   It gets a little crude at times (duh) and some of the poopy references get a little old.  But the scene in Vegas with Seth and Paul Rudd taking mushrooms at a Cirque du Soleil performance was farking hysterical!   It is longer than 2 hours, so be sure to go potty before going in, if you're getting the Exxon-Valdez sized Dr. Pepper.  And for a completely different review, I also saw Once recently.  It's a story set in Ireland about a struggling musician, and how he falls in love with a Czech immigrant girl who gives him the motivation to actually write and record his songs (which tell the story of their almost-romance), and ultimately chase his dream of fame.   I know it sounds cheesy, but it was actually very well done and a great story.  The acting is great, and the music was excellent…typical folksy-rock coffeehouse fare, but better than most.   Obviously it isn't going to be as fast-paced as something like Live Free or Die Hard (can. not. freaking. wait!), but overall it was an excellent movie.

 

Last 5 songs I heard on Hair Nation: Poison – Look What the Cat Dragged In, Sammy Hagar – One Way to Rock, Motley Crue – Wild Side, Kiss – I Just Wanna Forget You, Ozzy Osbourne – Shot in the Dark.

 

Now that I've got my new computer, and can safely install my own software on it (Firefox, etc.), I'm starting to channel my inner geek.   I download Firefox, get the Google toolbar, and then start looking at all the ways to improve Firefox .  So I add buttons for Digg and Del.icio.us, which gets me into joining a bunch of these "social community" sites.   And then I read blogs like Wheatie's, and read about some of the cool stuff he's playing with ( Netscape, Buzznet, Last.FM, etc.), so I check them out.   So now I found the equivalent of an RSS reader for all of the social community sites, Mashable.   So when I get home tonight, I get to try and consolidate all of my online crap down into one simple site account.  Or theoretically that's how it will work.   Time will tell.  And when it does, I'll tell you.  Are any of you on any of these sites?  Let me know and I'll add you.   Or don't.  I've got lots of new online friends to play with.

 

Work has been extremely busy, with projects and proposals all coming due at the same time.  I cranked out a proposal last week, in the middle of working on an Air Quality statement for a project in the desert east of San Diego, then over the weekend I finished up a second proposal, which went out earlier this week, and now I've got two more proposals I'm trying to get done next week (both of them, both potential million dollar plus contracts – no pressure), while helping out on a third proposal, which is also due within the next week and a half!   Crazy.

 

So there.  We're updated.  See ya out there when I get a chance.

The one in which we try to get our ass back on track

I.  Am.  Lame.  There.   I said it.  I haven't posted in a few weeks, and I am scum for it.  So much of my little corner of the universe is conspiring to keep me out of the blogosphere.   Not sure why…my blogs aren't anything spectacular, but they certainly don't suck as bad as some other stuff that's out there.  Nonetheless, I find myself facing obstacles to getting blog posts out.  

 

First, there's my computer priorities.  I do enjoy blogging, but my "unmolested" computer time is pretty limited.   So when I get a large chunk of free time (i.e. when DAPGF is teaching), my first instinct is to fire up a poker tournament.  The smaller ones (called Sit and Go's, because when you have the right number of people – 9, 18, 45, etc. – you take your virtual seats and start playing) usually take just over an hour to play.   So on nights that DAPGF teaches, by the time I get home from the gym and throw some groceries down my neck (points to anybody who can name that reference), I can get 2 or 3 poker games in before GF gets home and my time is no longer my own.   The only other time I can typically find a large enough block of time when I'm not likely to be bothered, is after she goes to sleep.  Unfortunately, this means that I'm lucky if my poker game is over by 1:30 a.m., so the early evening hours tend to get devoted to poker.

 

Then, we have my "after-hours" life.  DAPGF teaches two nights per week.   So the other nights of the week, we spend together doing whatever.  Maybe we go see a movie, maybe we sit and watch TV, maybe we take the dog to the dog park.   In any respect, it does not typically involve me getting to spend time by myself sitting on the computer.

 

In my more prolific blogging past, I did most of my blogging at work.  My previous job left me a lot of flexibility in the office.   Most of what I did in the office involved time on the phone, looking over sets of construction plans, and waiting for people to give me said plans to review.   As such, I had a fair amount of time that was free enough that I could keep up on my blog reading as well as my posting.  I also had my own office and didn't worry about corporate IT Nazis throwing a hissy-fit about my visiting non-work related websites.   Now most of my time at work is spent reviewing and writing environmental review documents, drafting City ordinances and laws, and writing proposals to hopefully get more work.   So my in-office time is much more packed.  Combine that with the idea that our corporate masters have an idea that we should have an "open" work environment to encourage teamwork and such, and our IT overlords have IP tracking software on all of our computers.   There have actually been emails from our CEO telling us to not go to non-business related websites, because for each employee hour wasted while surfing, it costs the company X number of thousands of dollars each day, blah blah blah.   So I am understandably reluctant to spend hours with Blogger open, either posting or simply checking out others' blogs.

 

Finally, the ultimate frustration is the fact that my personal computer died.  I take my work laptop home with me every night, just so I can check my email and such, but even then I don't have all of my music, photos, poker hand histories, and other crap that I usually find blog-worthy.   And to top it off, our IT overlords have installed synchronization software on all of our laptops, which synchronizes the hard drive to our network every day when we log into our intranet.   So I do what I can to delete my temp files, internet history, file/application history, etc. before I shut it down (it syncs on shutdown), but I'm not a full blown computer geek (I just play one on TV), and I'm sure that there's something I'm missing that could tell the overlords whether I've been visiting Beastiality . com or something (I don't, it's just an example…besides, zoolover . com has a much better library of mpeg files!   I kid!  I kid!).

 

So I'm trying to be sneaky and type this post up in MS Word, and then I'll sneak into Blogger and doublecheck my "Post by Email" address, and fire it off.   Hopefully it will work, because I'd like to get back to being a mildly popular member of the blogosphere again, as opposed to a guy with two blogs that nobody reads.   Wish me luck.

And another week oozes to an end...

Well, the weight has gone down a bit from the high point, but as I expected it was higher than my weekend late weigh-in low points. Meh. A couple of changes that I’ve noticed this week.

1. The dog has been taking longer morning walks. While this isn’t a bad thing in and of itself, walking her isn’t a “high-impact” cardio event. When she does a shorty walk, I usually have an opportunity to do a 15 or 20 minute Exercise TV cardio routine. That gets the blood flowing and sets up a metabolism boost going into breakfast. It seems to me that 15 min walk + 15 min of Exercise TV is better than 30-45 minutes of just dog walk.

2. DAPGF started her new quarter of teaching this week. Last quarter she taught 3 nights out of the week (Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday), and I was able to hit the gym each of those nights after work. This quarter she is only teaching two nights out of the week, so I lose one gym night. I still get to the gym on the weekends, but I’m trying to find out where I can sneak in some additional exercise. I’m trying to get out and walk for 15-30 minutes at lunch, but recently I discovered this…

3. There’s a driving range about a mile from my office (and around the corner from our future location!). When I was working for Heritage Pacific, there was a driving range near the office, and I went there every day I could. Of course it helped that when I bought my $40 range card, they apparently screwed up and programmed it for $400 dollars worth of credit! I never noticed it until I thought I’d come close to burning through $40, and I actually looked at the display on the ball vending machine. Imagine my surprise to see that I was sitting on more than $360 in credit! You might not think so, but driving golf balls for 45 minutes is a pretty decent workout. Since it’s extremely unlikely that I’ll wind up with another screaming deal like the one I had (the range card was only good at that one range, and since I was laid off from the job and lived 26 miles away from the range, it made sense to sell the range card on Craigslist), I’ll have to limit my play to a couple of times per week. Still, every little bit helps.

This weekend was bad, but for a good reason. DAPGF is having a birthday! Of course it falls on a night she teaches, so we partied it up this past weekend, particuarly with the food. Friday was pretty simple...ribs! Unfortuantely not Corky's in Memphis (ask River Driver about it), but certainly adequate. Saturday lunch was a sushi buffet, and despite the fact that sushi is fundamentally a healthy food, once you add the word "buffet" to it (see Souplantation), healthy is out the window. Still, I loves me some raw dead fish, so no complaints from yours truly. Then came dinner. Hoo boy! My favorite swanky seafood joint in San Diego (and that's saying a lot!), Oceanaire. DAPGF had the Baqueta (a member of the bass family, caught somewhere off of Baja's east coast). It was pan seared in a mushroom demi-glace, with garlic mashers. Yummy. Me, I had my favorite dish there, Ahi Tuna Steak that has barely kissed the pan. It was done to perfection, seared barely an eighth of an inch in (that's cooked fish, not fat, in case you couldn't tell), served with a wasabi-something sauce. I also had a cup of their clam chowder, which was very good, but came in behind Brophy Bros.' Santa Barbara location. And as a side to share, we had one of their signature dishes, Hash Browns a la Oceanaire. You might be thinking, "hash browns?" Oh sweet Lord you haven't had hash browns until you've had these. First, it's a huge order. Second, the potatoes are freshly grated on site. Third, they're fried in enough butter to kill. Fourth, they're intermingled with cheddar, carmelized onions, bacon, and tobasco sauce. Absolutely to die for, and I'm sure i will be dying soon from clogged arteries or something. Still, absolutely worth it. Can't wait to see what the weigh-in will be on Monday!

And now I need to file a complaint. I went to the gym over the weekend (yay for me!), unfortunately without my mp3 player. I’d taken it out of the bag to load up some new tunes (it’s old, and only 256 mb…give me a break), and didn’t get it done. So I figured I’d listen to the tunes they piped in (from some service like Music Choice or one of those). When I walked in, they were on a basic rock tip, and I listened to Bon Jovi (Livin’ on a Prayer) and AC/DC (Back in Black) while I was getting changed. As I entered the gym floor and headed to my ab cruncher bench, “Stop” by Jane’s Addiction started up. OK. All good tunes for pumping up a workout pace. And here’s where things went weird. About a minute into Jane’s Addiction, someone switched channels over to a pop channel. Not really happy, but I figured the pop tempo of the music would keep things moving. The first song kinda did ok…it was by Jessica Simpson (I think) and had that hook from “Jack and Diane” by John Cougar. I hate it when decent songs get corrupted like that, but at least the song had a reasonable tempo. The next one was some breathless-sounding girl doing a very mellow and slow cover of “Send Me An Angel,” which was originally done back in the 80s by (I think) Real Life, and sounded a lot like “Twilight Zone” by Golden Earring. The original version of “…Angel” had a good tempo, with its Eurotrash beat, but this sounded like somebody, whispering over a keyboard wash. And the one after that was an equally mellow-sounding version of Firehouse’s “Love of a Lifetime,” which itself was a far too mellow hair metal ballad. I didn’t think it could’ve gotten more mellow, but I guess if you take the electric guitars (even the ones without distortion) away, it puts you to sleep. At that point I just tuned it out and did my workout. I’m not sure what really happened, but as the timer counted down to zero on the elliptical trainer, “Root Down” by the Beastie Boys came on. I’m not sure when someone grew a pair and switched over from the sappy, sleepy crap that had been on, but I sure wish it had been sooner. As it is, I will be loading up the mp3s tonight…I’m thinking Stormtroopers of Death (Speak English or Die), Disturbed, Linkin Park, Dokken, Ratt, Iron Maiden, maybe some Beastie Boys and Ludacris, and maybe Pantera to round out a nicely energetic mix.

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...