Posted by Joel
Mon, 08 May 2006 18:32:00 GMT
Yesterday was again a lazy day. David left for Oregon for a week. I watched Godfather II. Many say it is as good or better than the original. I felt it was excellent, but not quite as powerful as the original.
Then we watched Yojimbo, an old Akira Kurosawa movie. I started to get a bit bored during it, but by the end it had captivated my interest again, so ultimately I enjoyed it.
I wrote down a bunch of things that I could be doing. I wonder if I should get out of this business. I'm surprised how well I'm doing; after paying my taxes I thought I would be in trouble. And yet I still have a decent savings and reasonable income. I'd like to just get employed somewhere, but nothing seems to be panning out, and I'm not sure how much I'm into the Web 2.0 crowd.
The fact of the matter is I'm considering other trades. I think maybe I should go down to LA and spend a week with my brother. I really wanted to visit Chicago for his birthday, and to see my old friends and my dad, but even if I'm doing OK financially I can't justify such an expenditure.
There was an RJD2 show at the Independent last night that we had tickets for, but we didn't go. The whole point was to go with David and he's gone. I fear the same might be true of the upcoming Prefuse 73 and Edan concert.
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Posted by Joel
Sun, 07 May 2006 19:21:00 GMT
Yesterday was very relaxed. We went to Fly Bar for dinner, came back and watched Capote, which was good.
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Posted by Joel
Sun, 07 May 2006 00:07:00 GMT
Friday I applied at another job and did some more work on my project. I tried watching the Godfather part II but just wasn't in the mood, so I'll have to finish it later.
After David was done with work we went on another run down to Golden Gate Park. It was a really pleasant run, and the exercise has clearly gotten much easier.
I figured out the mystery regarding my weight fluctuation. Katie had adjusted the scale because it was 5 pounds light. This means I was never 183, I was 188. As of today, I'm 184. But this scale in general seems a bit sketchy, so I'm not going to obsess over what it says.
We went out to the Mission to meet up with some friends at La Rondalla for Cinco de Mayo. It was really packed and we got on the waiting list with an expected wait of two hours. It was too crowded to hang out there so we went down the street to Phoenix, an Irish pub. We had a good time there, some drinks, killed an hour and a half, and went back to La Rondalla.
On the way there we ran into some of my old coworkers, Cameron and Tim, and had a short chat.
At La Rondalla we got a table immediately and I stayed true to my diet for the most part and didn't eat anything except some chips and salsa and margaritas. Carl and Hathaway and Cruise were there. We just had a really great time and took a taxi back to our apartment and hung out here and they stayed in our living room. Given how little I've been eating and how much I was drinking I got very drunk, and this morning I had a hangover like Satan himself was dwelling in my head. I had some ibuprofen and soup and watched David play GTA.
I also want to say, on a completely unrelated note, how glad I am I didn't get a MacBook Pro. This thermal grease issue is kind of disturbing. But, yeah, don't buy first revision hardware. Supposedly the regular MacBooks will be announced Monday.
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Posted by Joel
Fri, 05 May 2006 17:23:00 GMT
Yesterday wasn't that exciting. Cereal, sandwich. Water, coffee, diet coke. Laundry. Sitting at computer. Writing down thoughts about my project. Wondering why I haven't heard back from that interview yet. Thinking about looking around for more contracts.
I did a little bit by way of programming. Inspired by that AnySite thing, I created a Ruby script that scrapes a feedless page and creates a feed for it, specifically for Perry Bible Fellowship. I used the htmltools and feedtools libraries this time. Was neat to learn them. Here's the code: pbf.rb
I'm the same weight as yesterday. I have no choice but to start getting more aggressive and that means regular exercise and less cheating. The sooner I've gotten fit the sooner I can get back to eating like a regular person without guilt. I've had success with just dieting in the past but it doesn't seem to be enough this time.
I'm not going to be some chubby fat guy the rest of my life. I'm not going to do this whole thing where I feel embarrassed all the time, feel guilty over enjoying food, and am deathly afraid of taking off my shirt at the beach or pool. This ends now.
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Posted by Joel
Thu, 04 May 2006 16:23:00 GMT
Yesterday very little was done. Cereal for breakfast and I made myself a turkey sandwich (no mayo, no cheese) for dinner. Carl and a friend of his came over and they all went to La Rondalla. I cheated a bit and had a beer and a raisin cookie. I stayed in and drank rum and diet coke and did RH radio.
I have made little progress in both client projects and my own project since I started this endeavor. I need to work on my responsibility and work habits.
I am in a bit of a mood this morning because I weighed myself and my weight has gone up. I know that liquid consumption in particular can cause lots of immediate variation in your weight, but it's still disappointing. Just need to keep trying. Maybe today I'll go for a run, that habit has taken an unfortunate decline in popularity.
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Posted by Joel
Wed, 03 May 2006 17:51:00 GMT
I had a cable modem to return to Comcast, and it took all of three bus routes to complete my mission. They were completely packed busses at 3 pm. I can only imagine what they are like during rush hour. I made my way to Potrero and 16th and delivered the package and then went back. That is the extent of my adventuring yesterday. Honestly, driving probably would have been more sensible in this particular situation.
It was another beautiful day, and I learned that by manipulating the blinds properly, I could still see through them well enough without letting the offendingly bright sunlight pour into my room and desk and make my computer impossible to use. I consider this revelation to be a break through. Today is overcast, so I have all windows fully up.
I had gotten lazy about my Netflix duties again, so I had knocked off two discs earlier in the week and mailed them out. But the last disc I knew would be a struggle. It is the movie Say Anything, which I evidently queued up because I felt it was "culturally significant." I tried to watch it last night, and while it's not a bad 80s teen romance movie, it's still not exactly something that easily kept my interest. David insisted that I not be a hero, so I gave up. The disc goes back, unfinished.
Katie brought a scale when she moved in, so I weighed myself this morning. 183. Was 185 yesterday, but various factors do cause significant variation in weight, so it's not fair to say I've lost two pounds in one day. However, I would say I've been keeping very well within my diet and intend to keep doing so.
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Posted by Joel
Tue, 02 May 2006 17:10:00 GMT
I went to the bank and deposited some checks, and then onto the DMV, where I finally got myself a California driver's license and they punched a hole in my Illinois one. I can't say I'm thrilled about the photo, but people rarely are. For the next four to five weeks, my license is a piece of paper.
Once I got home, I got some insurance immediately and printed out the card for that. This makes me a completely legal driver.
A couple months back, my insurance was cancelled because my Illinois license was suspended for a speeding ticket I got in Missouri nearly a year ago and never paid. I have gone through the arduous process of lifting the suspension and am now completely legal again. It is a lovely feeling. Upon realizing my license was suspended, I have avoided driving, which it turns out is very easy in San Francisco. I rarely drive except to repark my car to avoid parking tickets, and otherwise just to visit SLO or LA. Busses, cabs, and my feet do the rest of the work. It's mainly because I hate the process of parking my car in crowded places where I'm likely to be driving.
I also registered to vote with no party affiliation.
When I came back, I did some real cooking for the first time in my life. I had picked up a chicken breast at the butcher on Divisadero and David helped guide me in trimming the fat off of it. Besides that, I had merely a cookbook and a kitchen filled with assorted items you might expect from its former chef occupant, Michael.
I made a mixture of olive oil, thyme, oregano, salt and pepper, and after roasting the chicken, basted it, and did so regularly until it was full cooked and then I carved a portion off and enjoyed it. I also steamed a lot of broccoli, because steamed broccoli is probably one of the most delicious healthy foods in existence.
Afterwards, David and Katie and I watched Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations, which is one of my favorite shows right now. He goes places, does things, and usually hates them, much to our amusement and identification. But sometimes he expresses genuine comfort and enjoyment which is inspiring.
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Posted by Joel
Mon, 01 May 2006 19:14:00 GMT
Yesterday I walked on down to the Haight because it was such a beautiful day. There I saw David and Katie finishing up cleaning out Katie's apartment. I helped them move some couches outside, and then we went to get a beer.
Went to some bar on Haight St. which had an outside area. The seats were taken so we just leaned against a wall, but we didn't mind since it was such a nice day.
We walked down to Cole Valley to get some wines, breads, and cheeses, and I went to a hardware store and got a Philips #00 to take apart my long-broken digital camera, a Canon PowerShot SD300 suffering the dreaded E18 error, and see if I could fix it.
After that we split up and I went back to the Haight and looked through thrift stores. I was mainly looking for button-down shirts and a nice blazer on the cheap, but I didn't walk away with a single thing I liked. Maybe I'm just indecisive.
I got in a cab and came back home. David and I took apart my camera, managed to retract the jammed lens, and then put it all back together. Sadly, it refused to power on. At least it has the dignity in death of having a retracted lens.
Oh, we also watched that address Stephen Colbert gave at the White House Correspondents Dinner, which was hilarious and accurate. The balls that man has.
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Posted by Joel
Sun, 30 Apr 2006 17:40:33 GMT
Somehow, this has become something of an all-out burst of motivation to improve myself. As well as keeping within my diet yesterday without trouble, I completely cleaned up, organized, and decorated my room which had previously been in disarray. There were still things Michael had left in this room before he went back to Illinois.
One of those things I was able to absorb as my own: a large Mark Rothko poster. Oh yes, and I'd also managed to clean all of my clothes. Personal hygiene and cleanliness are to be new priorities.
I am excited about the prospect that I may be turning over a new leaf.
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Posted by Joel
Sat, 29 Apr 2006 18:07:00 GMT
After the interview yesterday I didn't do much worth note, besides struggle to further my ends in my project until I inevitably got distracted. But I did make a decision.
I'm going to really try to get in shape. And I mean the whole thing. I had to tell David and Katie that I wasn't going to go out to eat as much as before or drink beers every day. I realize I'm going to alter my reputation as someone that can be counted on to go out for a good time riddled with various forms of indulgent consumption into one of a health nut prude.
And after somehow announcing my intention to sacrifice and carrying through with it while they went to Magnolia, I felt more convicted to do it. I'm doing it the old fashioned way. Eating less, only eating healthy foods, and exercising with some regularity (I'm not sure if I mentioned that we did go running on Wednesday). I don't intend to "reward" myself with fatty foods or in any other way break the cycle until I'm down to my target weight.
Which isn't so much a target weight, as a target appearance, as I don't even have a scale. But I'm guessing around 150-155 pounds would be ideal. That's over 30 pounds to lose.
A lot of my inspiration comes after quitting smoking, which I was also very attached to, much like I am the out-every-night lifestyle. Still, I was able to do it, and when I did, the second I threw away my last pack of cigarettes, over six months ago now, I knew I wasn't ever going to look back and that I was just sick of it and through with it. And that's how I feel about being overweight.
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