stevengharms

Something that’s stuck with me, unlike vinegary BBQ, is this ad on the air of NC TV.

I’m a very serial guy. Whatever it is I’m working on, I’m working on it 100%. I’m sorry to say that this meant that for the entire bleeding month that I was doing this site’s CSS redesign I was thinking about how to get stupid blocks of text to shift around by pixels.

When I got that done I was able to throw myself back into my other things full force ( math class, C++ class, Ruby projects, a book idea, etc. ). People at my work get commissioned for projects in percentages ( an idea I’m not such a fan of ) and they work for 88.2 minutes on this project and 15 on that, and 3 on another.

I simply loathe this practice.

From a project management point of view it makes sense, someone has a chart and someone has a man-month of hours, you need n-many of these for project alpha, beta, etc.

But I digress.

Somehow in my serial nature of focus I managed to drop key elements of daily life. I seem to have dropped exercising and this has had deleterious effects.

Flashback to 2004, I was at the Gold’s on Shoreline and 101 with a regularity that would have made an assassins job trivial. Flashback to pre-Australia San Francisco, I was at the 24 hour on 16th street to be at a solid 36-inch waistline and, on some pants, be at a 34 waistline. Flashback to Gregory Gym 1995, The Social B and I were some lean mean regimen machines. I know I can do it.

It’s just gotten out of control. Around those days in SF, I was coming in at about 185 and 6’. Now I’ve packed about 20 more onto that. That’s about 5 a year for the last 4 years. It’s time for the insanity to stop.

Now there was a brief downward trend in all of this when I did my 90 days of yoga last summer. That was excellent and I’m angling to start getting back to the classes again: fortunately I live very close to the YY location on Gracy Farms.

So, for the next 6 weeks I’m going to try to stop this roller-coaster. The stress, travel, and responsibilities in my life aren’t going to change; if anything I will acquire more responsibilities. It’s time to put the health focus back into the mix and if I drop other things, they should be dropped.

I’ve had this thought at the back of my mind for the last few months, but haven’t undertaken any action on it. Two things happened in NC that put me in a new state: I bought new pants ( size 38 ) and my ex-boss rubbed by gut.

It’s not too far gone now, but I’m going to stop it from getting worse des que maintenant.

So, yesterday, I took the first step. 20 minutes on the stairmaster, preacher curls for the arms, delt raise, and fly.

On the up side, I have plenty of fat to turn to muscle, so I might just look freakishly rip by the end of this.

Update: I actually wrote this last night, but I was checking in on my buddy The League and it appears that in the very same day, in the very same town, separated by several miles of highway and a river full of kayakers, we both made the decision: “(Name here), it is time to lose some freaking pounds.”

I found a chat transcript I saved from IRC circa 1999.

In it a young n00b called “Operator” asks some very rudimentary questions ( “what’s telnet?” ). Ultimately we point him in the right direction, but there’s some good laughs had along the way - especially when we invite him to visit Murray’s machine ( 127.0.0.1 ).

The story of Murray

Good golly, I love the East Coast ( especially the Old English dominions ), but dear lord I’m so very glad to be back under the big, wide, blue sky of the Lone Star State in lovely Austin.

I like what’s in NC: The Sweetest of the Teas, the friendly of the people, and the vinegary of the bar-b-q.

But I miss the cheesy of the queso, the dry of the bar-b-q, and the girliest of my friends.

So tonight, in but a few short moments, I’ll put my head back to rest.

Although it may be worth saying I was not a fan of the smoking indoors near where I’m eating that’s present in NC. Winston-Salem country it is.

When my friend Mice had his first child I christened her in the language of hip-hop:

“DJ So B. Real”

Today I proclaimed his son’s name

“Mike Check 1-2”

May this family continue to drop only the freshest of rhymes to only the fattest of beats for many years to come.

My blog-friend Daniel has posted numerous times citations, references, quotes, speeches of the representative of the 14th district of The Lone Star State: Ron Paul.

Yet I can recall being a freshman with The Social Bobcat during one of Mr. Paul’s re-election cycles. The ad was the typical attack ad; judging by Paul’s attendance record, it didn’t do much to derail his career.

In any case the ads were along the lines of

• “Rrrron Paul, mumbledy mumble badda badda. “

or

• “Who approved mumbledy mumble, blah blah? Rrrron Paul.”

There was the implication of a rolling “Rr” and when it was said the picture on the screen would inverse expose ( look like a film negative ) and it became clear that Paul was the negative (ho-ho!) choice.

Every time I see Paul’s name I think “Rrron Paul”

I wish I could find that ad on youTube.