Category: Life As I Know It

My world domination plans are progressing nicely.
I GOT THE JOB! I start on Monday!
Can’t type much more right now, too busy jumping around celebrating.

Just a quickie update since I’ve been way too busy to update properly (Hi Athena!) This crazy busy-ness is also the reason that the daily haiku has become the “whenever I get a chance” haiku.
I’m unemployed, and yet have no time to relax. I’m participating in NaNoWriMo, so I’m writing about 2000 words a day, everyday in November. This is actually quite a chore for me, but I think I’m getting some shining moments among the crap. I’m writing a Douglas Adams Style time travel adventure.
I’m trying desperately to work on songs for the CD as we want to finish out CD by the end of the year, optimistically.
I’m addicted to Evil Genius, still want to play City Of Heroes but hven’t had time, and despite trying to resist, have given in to my desire and my friends desires that Jess and I try Everquest II. We are waiting until December though so we can make the most of our free trial time.
I have an interview on Wednesday for a job I actually really want, and not just to pay the bills.
Life is generally damn fine.

Today, my friends, a momentous goal has been reached. 5 months ago I set out to change my junk food ways and drop all the extra me that had accumulated over the years. I started out at 214 lbs. and set my goal at 175 lbs.
Today the scale read 174.
To anyone looking for a healthier lifestyle, I can’t say enough about the South Beach Diet. It’s not a fad, it’s not a gimmick. It’s just plain simple science applied to your blood chemistry and the way your body absorbs foods. I’ll try not to go on too long since Jess and I have each spouted voluminously about this diet, but there are a few things I want to say.
1. I too am sick of hearing about all the fad diets and low carb this low carb that. Yes I follow the South Beach Diet, and am very glad for the influx of low carb foods making diets like this so much easier now (although, don’t be fooled, South beach is NOT just about “low carb”). This is not a diet in the sense of “something you temporarily do to lose weight”. It is a diet in the sense of “this is my usual food and drink for the rest of my life” such as “A lemur’s diet consists of fruit and insects”. As I’ve said before, it’s the only diet that actually made sense to me after reading the book (something I can’t say about Atkins).
2. I’m not here to try and convince or coerce anyone into eating like I do. I think everyone should make their own choices, and I’m certainly no diet dictator or anything. I won’t be throwing scolding glances at anyone who chooses to have a box of Krispy Kreme’s. I’m all about “to each their own”. However, if you decide to do this or any other diet, eating plan, lifestyle change, etc., don’t do it half-assed. It won’t work, and it will just make everything harder. For example, if you try South Beach, but only half-ass it, your cravings will not go away, your blood chemistry will remain goofy, and on the occasions that you do try and follow it you will find it much more difficult. For me, I honestly felt like a drug addict. If I stayed away from sugar and starches, I stopped craving them, and didn’t really crave them at all. There was an occasional psychological pang, but it was never a physical “I must have this now!” feeling.
I’ve heard so many people who slag off various diets only to find out that they either didn’t actually know anything about what they were talking about or they actually didn’t really follow the diet. Then they get discouraged and cynical because it didn’t work. That Diet Coke will do you no good when it’s washing down a bag of M & M’s, and South Beach (or probably any other diet) won’t work when you only do it half of the time. [Yoda]Do or do not. There is no try.[/Yoda]
I’ll stop being that annoying diet guy now. As I said, I’m not here to convince anyone else, but I’m extremely happy help anyone who’s interested with our experiences and tips that we’ve learned along the way.
Next step: to actually start exercising.

This weekend we were helping our friend Travis move to his new third floor apartment. It came time to move his washer and dryer (ugh) and he expressed how he really wished he could have sold them so he wouldn’t have to move them. I inquired as to how much he wanted for them and he told me they were $1200 brand new 2 years ago, and he bought them used for $800, so he would like about $400, and since we were friends and that would save him from moving them we could pay it out in installments. Everybody wins!
We jumped in his moving van (now empty except for the washer and dryer) and went to our apartment where I quickly threw everything we were currently storing in the empty laundry room into any empty space I could fin in the rest of our small apartment. We installed the washer and dryer, and later when Jess and I came home we sorted out the carnage and tried to figure out where to put all the crap that was formerly stored where the washer and dryer now live.
No more trips to the laundry room and worrying about having tons of quarters! Wooooo!

So I got on the 4:15 plane to DC. Met up with Casey and Jess. We then went to list ourselves on the 9:30pm flight to London. It looked very full, and both my friend and the agent we spoke with said it didn’t look like we would get on that flight, but we could try. It was the last flight of the day so if we didn’t get on we would stay in a hotel (which she reserved for us at a discounted “distressed traveler” rate) and catch one the next day.
We inquired what happened to our luggage since the agent in Austin told us our bags would go straight through to London with or without us. The agent in DC said that due to new security measures no bag could ever travel without it’s corresponding passenger on board, so our bags would have been pulled off when we didn’t get on the previous London flight. She checked on our bags and they were indeed in DC with us. They usually need 2 hours to get the bags arranged to go on the next flight when they’ve been pulled like ours were, and the next flight was only an hour or so away, but she said they would try to get them on. We asked what would happen if they didn’t get on, and she said that in that case we couldn’t go on the flight due to the no bags without people rule.
We waited around even though we knew we probably wouldn’t get on a flight until the next day. As everyone was loading, they called us up to the counter, and to our surprise, gave us a choice of several seating arrangements. Jess and I sat together on a 2 seat aisle, and Casey just a few seats away. Score! I called as we were in line and canceled our hotel reservation.
The flight was all right. We watched Mystic River, and didn’t really manage to get any sleep unfortunately. We arrived at Me-row (Heathrow) and went to get our bags. Long time. No bags. Empty carousel. No bags. Jess went to check on them. They were in DC. She filled out some paper work, and they said they would send them on and deliver them the next day (which they just did a few minutes ago as I write this.) So the first agent was wrong in that they didn’t go straight through, and the second agent was double wrong in that we did get on the plane without our luggage, and they did send it along anyway even though we were not on that flight.
We had a good time on our first day though I was falling asleep (literally) at several of the pubs/cafes we stopped at, and we finally went to bed after something like 40+ hours of being awake.
More details later. This was intended to be just a quick and non-entertaining update, but it has instead turned into quite a long but still devoid of the effort to make it entertaining update. We’re here, we have bags, and all is right with the world for the moment.

2 seats on the 11:45 flight to DC. I sent Jess and Casey along, and I stayed behind knowing I could call my friend Scott (who is the one that works for the airline) to get advice.
Then I get the text from Jess…
The passes for the second leg of the trip to London are in my bag. They won’t be going anywhere from DC until I get there. All flights looking very full. I now wait at the terminal to see if I can get on the 4:15 flight to DC (It’s currently 1:00). Luckily flights to London on Friday look less pessimistic. I am very, very bummed. And kicking myself for having their passes with me. Luckily there is an intel booth demonstrating their laptops, and thus my internet connection at the moment. Words can not express my lack of morale right now.

Our trip to the UK approaches. Panic sets in. Here’s the story.
Regular plane tickets cost way too much. Slightly more than gallon of gas, at around $1000 a piece. No way could we afford that. I have a friend who works for an airline and can get us “friends and family” passes for way, way cheaper. The catch is, you’re basically flying standby, so there’s no guarantee you’ll get on.
As I was confirming everything with him yesterday, he noted that the loads look “doable, but iffy”, meaning we may get stranded in Chicago if there’s not room on the flight. We would have to wait until a flight came up that did have seats.
As another kink, his airline has an embargo for certain dates during which friends, family, and leeches can not fly without the actual employee being present. So he’s going to have to “bid” for his days off and hope he can get our departure date off so that he can fly to London and then fly back with us (we will, of course, pay for his even more greatly discounted ticket back and still come out at less than half retail price). Should he not be able to get those days off, we would have to buy tickets from London to Paris, and fly out from there, because the embargo is only on westbound flights from London and Amsterdam at that point. You following? Probably not, but that’s alright.
I am still looking forward to this adventure, but hope we end up as Wyld Stallyns, and we don’t end up playing twister with death. (movie references in case anyone was confused)

I say it’s my birthday! [/beatles]
Well it was, on December 28, and a good one it was. A small groups of my good friends and I gathered at the Hard Rock caf� and had good fun just talking, eating and laughing. I got some cool booty too! Jess got me this thing that I’d had endless fun with in Sharper Image. You hum in it like a kazoo but your voice comes out sounding like either a Sax, Tuba, or Clarinet depending on the setting. It also has backbeats you can turn on to jam with. This goes well with the little toy accordion I got for Christmas. We spent X-mas with me figuring out various songs, and Jess and Casey, my cousin, trying to name the tune I was fumbling to figure out. I eventually got the Spongebob Squarepants theme, One of the Lord of the Rings songs, and a few Weird Al Yankovic tunes down.
Back to my birthday, Jess also gave me the coolest page-a-day calendar ever. Each day has a new origami project, and you use the previous days page to fold it! Very cool. My friend Nathan gave one of those cool glass static electricity discs. It’s currently among the stuff decorating my space at work.
Thanks to everyone for all the birthday wishes!