General Thoughts

I don’t normally like chain emails and such — but Lynda Walldez listed me as a blog she “tagged” to participate in “8 random things.”

I like the idea of 8 random facts, so I’ll bite. 🙂

8 Random Things You Probably Don’t Know About Me

1. My favorite color T-Shirt is orange.
2. I listen to The Carpenters when I’m depressed.
3. I hate having a cluttered computer desktop, but my actual desktop is always a mess.
4. I collect video games, yet seldom play them.
5. I like to eat tofu cold, right out of the package.
6. I despise Western movies.
7. I love mowing the lawn, but I’m so allergic to grass that I’m miserable every time I do it.
8. I love Star Trek, but I’m not all that crazy about Star Wars.

So there you have it. 8 things you probably didn’t want to know about me.

I’m supposed to “tag” 8 other bloggers, but honestly I don’t think I know 8 other bloggers to tag… So here’s your invite. Consider yourself tagged. If you want to participate, just leave a link to you “8 things” post in the comment section.

Thanks Lynda, that was fun!

I live in a small town. When I’m driving down the road, I wave to just about everyone I pass, because chances are I know them. I also tend to wave to everyone anyway, but here in town — I’m less likely to offend someone if I wave at everyone.

Today, however, I almost killed an elderly man on a bicycle. I was driving into the office to fix the school’s Internet connection. I passed a man, I’m guessing in his 80s, on a bicycle. Friendly guy that I am, I smiled and waved. This man grew up in a time that manners were actually taught. Decades of domestic training in standard etiquette prompted him to lift his hand and wave back. And at that moment, I thought I might kill an old guy.

He lifted his hand and waved, but lost balance and started to veer away from me and toward the ditch. He instinctively corrected, but too far, and lurched his vehicle directly in front of mine. We managed to avoid each other, but I think the generation gap was closed when we both had to go home and change our pants.

Note to self: Nod to old people on bicycles, don’t wave.

I just discovered that my website doesn’t render right under Internet Explorer… How odd!

I’m starting to get enough traffic that perhaps hosting from my home DSL line isn’t really the wisest move anymore. Perhaps I’ll run to blogger or something, now that they have well done domain interaction.

Did you know you can point your domain name to blogger, and they’ll host everything for you? It’s pretty cool. I do love WordPress, though, so I dunno, maybe I’ll just change to a theme that is Windows friendly.

John Scalzi has some good advice today on his website, and it caused me to look at my own keyboard. My lovely children are the worst offenders, but it still amazes me this keyboard still works without any problems.

I play guitar. Well, I want to play guitar. I’ve been learning for probably 20 years, but when it comes to actually playing a song, something doesn’t click in my brain.

Oh, I admit that I haven’t practiced as much lately as I should, but honestly, practice starts to feel futile when you can’t seem to strum out a simple 2 chord song. My problem has to do with rhythm and strumming. For some reason, unless I force myself to mechanically strum the strings “UP DOWN UP DOWN UP DOWN” forever, I lose myself in the rhythm, and awkwardly try to catch up or something. Oh, and if I do just strum up and down, it sounds horribly mechanical and awkward.

To try putting the problem I have into words — it seems like my brain/fingers are attempting to strum every syllable, or at least every word. I know it’s not as hard as I’m making it out to be, but the inability to comfortably play even ONE song does make practice frustrating.

I recently (at Bair Lake) watched the guitar leader play a million songs, and never change his strumming pattern. He changed chords SLOWER than I usually do, and sounded infinitely less awkward in doing so. I’m not sure what I’m doing, or why I’m doing it — but it’s really to the point that practice is not fun, and any singing attempts are usually cause for quitting altogether. We won’t even talk about playing with someone else, much less lead other people in singing.

So anyway, there’s my 2AM, can’t sleep, whining complaint-fest.

Hi everyone! I’m back. I’m tired, but I’m back. I have a terrible headache, but I’m back. My nose is running like a faucet, but I’m back. I miss my wife and oldest daughter (they stayed for another week), but I’m back.

So far, being back kinda sucks…

Hope you are all doing well. I look forward to catching up on blogs, etc. in the next few days.

I stumbled upon this video, and I thought it was pretty funny. I’m not sure the original source, but I thought it was great. The only background info I know is that a couple named “Jennifer and Jim” were getting really high water bills, and one day they found out what the cat did all day while they were at work.

My last post (I think it was my last…) mentioned the Eat-2-Live diet. Since it literally changed my life, I’ll expand a bit.

About 2 years ago, I weighed 220lbs. I was at the doctor’s office for a routine sickness, and he mentioned offhand that I was at risk for heart attack. I hadn’t’ realized that was the case, so when he said it — I was shaken up a bit!

At that time, I was on 3 medicines to control blood pressure, one for migraines, and about 3 for allergies. I have no idea how I didn’t see the risk for heart attack, but my mental self image was that of an invincible young adult. I’ll be honest, the doctor’s nonchalant mention that I was really unhealthy scared the heck out of me!!!

That day I went home, and googled for diets that reduced blood pressure. My goal was to have healthy blood pressure, and I realized my weight was a large part of the problem. I have always had moderately high blood pressure, even as a child, but now it was high even with medicines. Anyway, I found Eat-2-Live, and even the title spoke to me.

I called a local bookstore, which was a 35 minute drive away, and asked if they had the book in stock. Surprisingly, they did, so I drove over and bought it right away. I read the entire thing that evening. The next day I started the vegan diet, low in oil and grains. It was hard, I’ll admit — but since you can eat as much food as you want, it’s not impossible.

Anyway, over the next few months, I lost over 60 pounds, and my blood pressure and cholesterol were the lowest they’d ever been. I think my cholesterol was 135, and my BP was 118/70. It was awesome, and I felt better than ever before.

I would have stayed with the lifestyle, but unfortunately eating all fresh fruits and vegetables gets expensive. Added to the stress of work, I ended up going down the bad road, and gained weight back.

I’m now on blood pressure medicine again, albeit a small dose. I’ve gained back 30 of the 60 pounds I lost, and my skinny guy clothes don’t fit anymore.

So, I’m back on the diet. Hummus and pita are my new Doritos, and tofu is stacked in the fridge waiting to be marinated. To be honest, I kinda missed this sort of food. I know I miss my skinny guy clothes, so maybe this will work again.

What do you think of the new look? Less creepy? Less personal? Better? Worse?
Go ahead, be brutally honest. And yes, that’s me sleeping in the straw hat. 🙂