A-one, and a-two…
So who was I listening to in the car on the way to work today?
The Dresden Dolls and OreSkaBand. I would have liked to see OreSkaBand when they were here this week, but I couldn’t exaclty take Tuesday off 🙁
I blame my musical taste on my mother, who tricked me into liking classical and folk in addition to the rock I got off the radio; and Tom Monaghan, who ate little more than ramen through his college years in order to acquire a huge and supremely eclectic CD collection.
When someone asks me what they’re likely to find on my iPod, I answer “almost anything from a Bach symphony to Japanese bubblegum punk.”
Walked a mile-and-a-half today. I really need to do this earlier in the morning before the mercury tops 80.
Travellers
LiveJournal seems a little slow today. Wonder what their servers are dealing with.
Got a nice evening walk in last night, 1.66 miles according to the GMaps Pedometer, though I swear it felt like 2. Turned out that the exercise was a good thing; right after we got back, Dwight called, and invited us out for sushi and hibachi. Starr wore her new Questionable Content kitty shirt I got her. I told the story of the time that a bunch of us went to a hibachi place in Roanoke, and as we were served, we all eagerly grasped our chopsticks… except for the Japanese exchange student with us, who matter-of-factly picked up her fork.
You’d think that with all the exercise, I’d have slept great last night. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case. While Starr said something this morning that cheered me, the weariness is still nibbling away at me. I think I may be naughty and pick up a Coke or two today.
This weekend we will be leaving Portsmouth around 7 or 8 p.m. and driving to Blacksburg. Saturday morning, we’ll be catching up with some of Starr’s family that will be in the general area, Saturday evening we’ll visit my Mom, and then Sunday we’ll be heading to my old house to survey what needs to be done to move Mom back in when she’s ready. Then we’ll drive back to Portsmouth. I may be pretty liberal with the caffeine this weekend as well.
Back when I apparently didn’t eat
If someone’s Twitter profile page says that they are following 35,000 people, than I somehow doubt that their ‘personalized’ request for me to follow them back means much. It doesn’t help that all their tweets are private. How do I know if you’re interesting if I can’t read your tweets / journal entries / etc.? This is also why I don’t have a MySpace.
Spent all night last night trying to catch up on e-mail correspondence, and in the process, forgot to call my mom and check on her, which I am not especially proud of. I did get the gerbil cage cleaned, though, which I’ve been promising to do for a couple of weeks.
cynical_prophet sent me this picture of myself from 1988. I was kind of down that night, and the pic was a surprise, so I don’t have the best expression. Starr had a fairly amusing reaction: “Is that you!?”
“Yes, it’s me, about 20 years ago.”
“Wait… you still have that shirt!”
“Not that it fits, it’s a size medium or so.”
“More like size Tiny!”
Temperatures are down a little, so I am walking again. Missed yesterday, but I aim for a mile today!
EDIT: Hokey smokes, they are sending my mom home from the hospital on Friday. Now that, boys and girls, is a solid recovery. I know she’s going to love getting to see her kitty again!
Brief updates
- 11:51 .67 miles again this am. Working my butt off. Also, found a pic of G.Lucas wearing a “Han Shot First” shirt. tinyurl.com/5ms88t #
- 13:30 20 min. into lunch: not a good time to find that Quiznos no longer carries my favorite sub. Prime rib cheesesteak okay, but too much onions. #
Sent subspace radio by LoudTwitter
Reverse Engineering the Future
First day in two weeks I’ve felt halfway decent. My sleep was restful, the little headache pulses are gone, and I even had the initiative to get back to walking today. (Only 2/3 of a mile, because it got cold out, and I didn’t bring a jacket this morning.)
Tonight I will be catching up on housework and bills, and of course giving my Mom a call to see how she’s doing.
Was thinking more about the high-tech Captain Nemo today. If you dropped today’s MacBook Pro in his workroom, I suspect that he’d figure out how to turn it on, and even use some of the software if there wasn’t a login password. I expect he’d work out what the battery was, and might even be able to recharge it using the technology of his time. I’m sure he could work out the basic concept of the motherboard, and I’ll even grant that he could reverse-engineer the simpler peripheral protocols with enough brute force, time, and care.
I’m fairly confident, though, that the LCD screen, integrated circuits, memory, and hard disk would be completely beyond him. At his technology level, any of them would have to be ripped apart and destroyed to achieve even a basic understanding of the principles involved. A magnetic storage medium might be within his imagination, but the ability to build another one just wouldn’t exist yet.
(A few of the TNG and DS9 episodes annoyed me in this fashion, showing the heroes taking apart communicators and tricorders with utterly primitive tools. I’m convinced that one couldn’t even crack the cases with less than highly specialized tools, and if one did, the contents would be largely integrated into a few non-user-serviceable bits. But that’s just me.)
Perhaps Nemo could accomplish much with “black box” parts delivered by a mysterious supplier, much as the scientist-heroes of This Island Earth did. But could our justly-paranoid sea captain trust the source?
Lunch and a walk
Finished my 10th mile of the new mile-a-workday program. At this rate, I should reach Rivendell by Christmas 🙂 Yesterday and today were beautiful walking days – 70 degrees, light breeze, cloudless skies. I notice that I’m slightly less overheated and winded than I was two weeks ago, though much progress remains to be made.
With the removal of two 200-calorie Cokes from my day, and a 200-calorie walk in addition, I’m hoping I see even a tiny bit of body difference in a month or two. I mean, I figure my diet beforehand was in the 2,200 – 2,400 calorie per day range, so that’s a fairly big cut.
After around 20-years, I have reconnected with cynical_prophet. He and I used to be thick as thieves in the Pathfinder days, but we had a falling out. That water’s long passed under that bridge, and I found him through clicking random LJ links – it’s good to hear from him again. Hard to write a short letter about “here’s what I’ve been up to for the last two decades”, though.
Another crushing Invid defeat
Last night I had my first taste of lobster in decades. I’d been putting a lot of energy into taking care of Starr lately, with her overwork issues and such; she decided it was my turn, and set up a lovely lobster and shrimp dinner for me.
Those things are hard to stare down – I’ve always been a bit wary of food that’s looking back at me. Luckily, lobsters look evil enough that I can tell myself that it would gladly eat me if our roles were reversed, and start dismembering the thing. (Cows are the same way. Don’t trust ’em, that’s all I’ll tell you.)
Very tasty; in fact, it tasted better with lemon juice than melted butter, to my surprise. I think that crab legs are still the shellfish win for me, but this is not a complaint I’m registering. I greatly appreciated the effort and expense!
Saturday was fun, but hectic and busy. A local crafter’s group pow-wow led into an unsuccesful Korean food run which preceeded a graduation party which turned into an unexpected late night hot-tubbing which became an overnight stay which included brunch the next morning with our host’s parents. I may not have gotten my explicit mileage in, but given the amount of time I spent on my feet, I’m calling it an exercise win.
Sunday mostly involved the couch, the kitten, and a lot of Discovery Network.
Feets don’t fail me now!
Hey there! I need opinions from the wise folk of LiveJournal.
So, I’m getting about a mile of walking in per day, but after a week, I’m still a bit winded and overheated when I finish.
One foot in front of the other
New favorite bookmark – Gmaps Pedometer. Turns out that the round trip here at work that I’ve been estimating at 1.25 miles is actually 1.11, and I burned ~190 calories making the trip (or most of one 20oz Coke).
I’m really tired of my spare tire. Not only is it forcing me to get rid of perfectly decent clothes, but a couple weeks ago I was winded just coming up a flight of stairs. This is unacceptable! I am now trying to get at least a mile of walking in every day. I think it’s time to try Diet Coke again, as well.
This old convention photo shows how I was built back in the late 80s. Many people these days don’t believe this is a picture of me! I think the hair will stay a memory, and my shoulders are permanently broadened by the crutches, but I’d like my chin back, and the ability to see my belt buckle. I really feel that I can do this.
Hmmm, the pedometer says that walking from my apartment to the nearby dog groomer and back is a mile. Think I’ll be doing that one on weekends.
Fake European fun
Starr showed me YouTube footage last night of several Discovery Channel stars singing the Boom-de-ah-dah song live at some promotional event. I was tickled by the Alaskan ship captains jumping in, and am more convinced than ever that Mike Rowe is insane in a wonderful way.
We had multiple friends ask us out last weekend, and politely demurred every time; this was our first unscheduled time in months, and we were determined to enjoy it quietly at home, with no stressors, expenses, or travel. So, of course, we ended up at Busch Gardens.
Yeah, that plan worked out great, didn’t it?
But it was a gorgeous Saturday, and I’ve been trying to visit the park since moving to Hampton Roads. We’d purchased Virginia resident Fun Cards earlier, and the Old Country was calling our name, so out we went! The weather might have been a bit too gorgeous, actually, since we left the sunscreen in the car and Starr got a bit roasted. There were also a couple of lines where we were minutes away from abandoning our place and running for the nearest air-conditioning.
But we had a great time. The DarKastle ride may be our new favorite – the 3-D is quite effective, if artificial. I rode the Battering Ram for the first time, which was a mix of fun and “ohcrap ohcrap I am falllinnnngg!” Seriously… rides where I fall make my internal organs shift positions and are an exercise in endurance for me, not entertainment. I don’t know why.
The Big Bad Wolf, on the other hand, didn’t have too much falling for a roller coaster, and a lot of swooping. I love swooping 🙂 It was almost dark by the time we got to that one, which added a dimension. The turkey sandwich I ate at the Festhall was pretty yummy, if overpriced, and I made sure to eat it in small, well-chewed bites, in hopes of avoiding motion sickness later. The Corkscrew Hill 3-D simulator nearly defeated that strategy, however.
We also got to see live wolves and huge bald eagles in a predator show, and a pretty good Irish music and dance show. So, even with sunburn, exhaustion, and expense, I’m chalking it up as a success. On the other hand, Sunday was quiet, lazy, and cheap after all. It kind of needed to be.
