Coming To Terms With Approaching Middle Age

Hi, remember me?  Yeah, it’s been awhile…  OK, so, it’s been a LONG while.  I took all of February off because I am a slacker.  And by slacker, I mean… I’ve actually been working.   Nothing fun mind you.  WORK work.  You know, that stuff you should be doing every day instead of reading this crap.

So, I think I’ve answered my WUMF question.  It’s dead.  It has ceased to be.  It became a hassle to try and cram small nuggets of content into a post at the end of the month just to hit a date.  I know.  First world blogger problems.

But, now we are into March and, of course, it’s time to remind myself of how much closer to death I really am. 

I AM 39!?!?!?!?

Yep…   

As a little experiment I went back and read my past posts on birthdays.  I was a morose sonofabitch, wasn’t I?  I just read the whole post about turning 33 and Madonna and American Pie and WOW! 

OK…  Enough of that.

Here’s what the last six years have taught me.

First of all, 39 is weird.  I mean really weird.  Much more so than 29.  Except for nine and 19, all the nine years are going to be weird but 29 wasn’t that big of a deal.  I had just bought a house and was about to get married…Excuse me while I laugh about that in my head for a bit.    But really, 29 wasn’t horrible.  I wasn’t that cranky yet.  Somewhere into my 30s, I became a cranky old man.  But, now, I feel like I am 29 again. I don’t know why?  Could it be, that I have dropped down to the weight I was at 29?  Could it be that other situations resemble what my life was like when I was 29?  Maybe.  The point is, that I don’t feel bad about being 39, but it’s just so odd to see, “I am almost 40.”

What the hell?  If you are over 40, think about what 39 felt like.  I sure as hell do not have anything together in terms of my shit.  I know I have not grown up.   But I don’t feel like an immature asshole.  I am a perfectly aged one, if anything.    I don’t know if this is what could be considered a mid life crisis.  If it is, 79 is going to REALLY SUCK.

I guess that I’ve sort of reclaimed a bit of myself and don’t get as angry.  I couldn’t care less about the youth of America because, well, they’ll be in my shoes soon enough and then they will see what I’ve seen.  They will also have to deal with how my child acts because karma is a fickle bitch.  When the 20 year olds of today reach 39, my kid will already have been in their shoes and hopefully she will crush that bitch of a stigma.  If not, dumb youth is basically universal.

Another thing about 39 is that I feel like I’m healthier than I was through most of my 30s.   I wasn’t sickly, but my overall well being was poor.  My outlook was poor.  My intake was poor.   So, there is time to fix all of the internal struggles we have with getting older.  Unfortunately, we will still be hampered by some of the physical ones.    I wouldn’t tell you to be proactive and guard yourself against letting your body deteriorate, but I would say that treating your body like a rental car perched at the top of San Francisco’s Lombard St., revving the engine, knowing full well you took the insurance, is probably a bad idea.

Moderation is more than just a cliché, but it also matters what quality your vices are.  I drank a hell of a lot between 21-23 and I felt like crap, afterwards.  Now, I drink maybe once a week, and even though I have tied a few on in the last year, I have recovered quicker and with less effects during the drinking.   However, my body, in its reclaimed state can handle the alcohol a lot better.  My tolerance has gone up even though my weight has gone down.  I’ve also switched to a better grade of alcohol.  Consider how your body feels when it eats McDonald’s vs. a nice home cooked meal.  It’s still the same type of food, but better quality.  Staying away from crap like “Lite” beers and drinking more wine have had an overall positive effect.  Quality and quantity working together it seems.

SO, when it comes time to roll the odometer into my 40s, I’m probably going to get a rude awakening.  Who knows?  Maybe it’s like dusting off a classic car, one with low mileage, and taking it across country.  Shit starts falling apart rather quickly.   However, I have no desire to be afraid of life.  I am taking it as it comes.  Doing the best thing I can to stay here as long as possible, with flare and responsibility.    This body needs to be in motion and we should exercise it and keep it limber.  Get your ass off the couch and move, people.  If you do that, you can do all the other things you’ve missed out on in the last ten years.

What are you waiting for, 49?

Lesser Man Project Reborn

A few years ago I embarked on a quest to lose a shit ton of weight.   I even put a little widget in the corner to track my progress.

Well, I failed. 

I failed because I became bored. I started right after Halloween and lost twenty pounds by December.  Then, Winter kicked in and I couldn’t get outside and the holidays came in and destroyed my attempts to not eat as much.   By October of 2012, not only had I gained those 20 pounds back, I also packed on another 15 and looked horrible.   Granted, I wouldn’t have looked great no matter how much I lost.

In any case, December of 2012, I came down with a severe case of bronchitis and my kid had the stomach flu, which made me not want to eat anyway.   So, I thought it would be a perfect time to start over.  I immediately lost 10 pounds just from being sick and avoiding food for fear of throwing it back up.

But, this time, I hit that plateau right where Spring kicked in and I could get outside.  Then, in July, I started feeling that complacency and the weight was started to trend back towards 275.   So, I kicked it back into gear and started walking in late August.  Now, I walk nearly every day at work, before lunch.  What started out as a few laps around our office building parking lot has increased on a steady basis with distance and speed.  I am still working on portion control and that has been the biggest part of my being able to not crash and binge heavily on food.  

  

Now, I’ll give you the proof.  I'm usually not one for putting my big ugly mug up on the Internet, but I thought it was important to give you a look at how much difference 33 lbs. can make you feel about the way you look.  It's enough to make you want MORE!

This is four separate shots, using roughly the same position to show where I was in October of 2012 (Upper Right) through roughly four month periods until this month, nearly a year later.  Starting weight was 295 lbs.  Currently, it is 262.

So, it’s still going to be a struggle and my target date has now shifted ahead to accommodate my ability to not lose focus.   That’s the one thing you have to remember.  Don’t lose too much, too quick, or you’ll think you’re done.   You need to slowly move towards a new life.  Patience.  Perseverance.  Positive Moves.  Never let anything stop you.  Use any and all obstacles as a driving force.  Turn negative energy and thoughts into fuel.   Keep Going.

WUMF: September 2012 Edition

OK... so, I've been distracted lately with stuff.   It's kept me from regularly posting, and I'm still late on my Labor Day travels post,  but the culmination of a few things have led to another thrilling edition of WUMF!


The Replacements
We all know that the replacement refs suck.  Fine.  But really, does the NFL care?  No.  You know why?  Because even bad publicity is good publicity.  Was it a bit petty that the league did not cave until the blown Green Bay/Seattle game??  Yes.  But the league generates a billion dollars. Even though the regular refs get like six figure incomes for working half the year and first class airfare, that's a still a huge disparity. 

Yet, it kind of backfires when the biggest names in team ownership see their games impacted by the botched calls.  The Krafts, who own the Patriots, and the City of Green Bay, which pretty much own the Packers both had games with controversial end game calls, resulting in losses for them.  That might be why the talks finally resumed and came to a conclusion.  So, now, we can get back to bashing the regular refs for blowing calls.  At least we get to see the Hochuli pythons signaling touchdown or holding.  Flex them you douche.  Flex them all the way to the bank.

SPPPPOOOOOON!
If you know what that's from you'll know what the hell I'm talking about. On Sunday, my wife was about to give our five year old a bath when she noticed what looked like a blackhead on her back.  Turned out to be a tick.  I looked at it for a second and just said, "Eff it!"  I pulled it out.   I managed to get it all out, intact.  It sat on my finger nail looking at me, wiggling.  So, I flushed it.

In hindsight, I should have saved it.   We took her to the pediatrician on Monday and they actually wanted to hire me to do tick removals.  Seems to be OK.  They gave her an antibiotic to treat a sinus infection and after three days, the bite is hardly noticeable.   No, "Bullseyse", as it were.   We'll keep an eye on her, though.

Now, we have some woods around our house, but we don't go near them.  In fact, on Sunday, we were only outside to go to the store, and then she was outside with m for about twenty minutes while I grilled steaks.  She played on her swing.  She didn't go anywhere near brush.  So, I don't know if she got it then, or if those damn strays passed it along.  That situation is getting ridiculous.

Slenderman
The other reason I haven't been posting is that I got sucked into watching these videos.  For those of you who do not know.  Slenderman was part of a competition on the Something Awful forums.  The task was to doctor up some photos to make it look like some scary phenomena.   The result was this thing that looked like a cross between the Gentlemen from Buffy, and a sperm.  Go look him up.

Anyway, it turned into an ARG, which is an alternate reality game where a group of people started posting videos like they were found footage.   Under the guise of making a "Student Film" called MarbleHornets, a friend is given a bunch of tapes from the production and is told to "burn them".  Of course, you can't do that, so the person starts watching them and posting them as entries online.  What happens is that you see strange things like video and audio distortion, shapes, SLENDERMAN!

You get sucked in, even though you know the whole thing is fake, just because they capitalized on the thing that made Blair Witch so popular 12 years ago. There is no explanation for why it's happening and that's part of the fun.  You hardly see the monster.  Of course, when you do, it's so badly constructed, but still, it creeps you out a bit.   After three years and 60 some entries, it's gotten a bit ridiculous, but damnit if I won't watch every single one of them.  There's even free video games online surrounding the hilarity.

Hitchcock was really good in using fetishistic scopophilia in films like Rear Window and Psycho.  That's when you are entertained by watching others' as in the case of Norman Bates looking at Marion Crane through the peep holes or L.B. Jeffries looks at his neighbors across the courtyard.   But what really ratchets up the excitement or terror is when you are simply observers, unable to control what's happening.  You simply sit and watch something.  In the case of the MarbleHornets videos, you are given a POV (Point of View) experience and the person filming takes you along on for the ride, passive and unable to control what is happening in the frame.

Mongo's New Addiction

I don’t know if I should classify this as an addiction to an item or an actual brand.

Previously, I had spoken about being addicted to a game called Minecraft.  For the most part, I still play it but find it hard to repeatedly do the same actions over and over again to no end.  The game was fun because it was a giant building sandbox that had some point to it and some monsters to fight.   But, the latest update, 1.8, has been slow to materialize and it’s purported to be an awesome update to a game that is still in Beta testing.

I’ve also spoken about an addiction or a overzealous love of coffee.  I’ve been a caffeine junkie for most of my life.  However, there is a distinct ability to switch off the want for caffeine, and sometimes the need.  I can go all weekend without having an ounce of coffee, but once I’m back to work it’s like crack.

Now, I’ve found my new crack, Sheetz coffee.

Let me back  up.

When I was at my old job, I usually made coffee for coworkers.  I’d come in just before 7 and between myself and another early bird, we would put a bunch of pots on for everyone.   Then, as you emptied a pot, you were supposed to make another one.  I would usually have an 8 oz cup at 7AM, one around 8:30AM and then one in the afternoon, around 2PM.   My weekly consumption was 24 ounces in a day, five days a week and none on the weekend.

Then, I started the new job and I still had to make coffee, but the Keurig K-Cup maker meant I could just do it for myself.    However, the difference was that we did not have standard 8 ounce cups.   We have 16 ounce cups.  So, I’d find myself mixing up a batch of two different flavors at 6 ounces each and adding Splenda and Coffee Mate powdered creamer.  That kept the calories down, at least.    I kept the same schedule  which meant a 12 ounce cup, three times a day.

But I felt as if I was doing myself a disservice in terms of health.  So, I’ve cut back, albeit not in a step down manner, to one 8 ounce cup in the morning and maybe a Diet Coke later on in the day.   Still not an optimal diet, but less intake.

Then, I found the crack, I spoke of a bit ago.   My back tires were in need of being replaced.   They were so bad that I was losing almost 2/3 of the air pressure every day.  I travel 70 miles round trip.  That’s not good.  So, I’d stop into any local Sheetz and fill up my tires, because air is free, for once.  After getting air, one day, I decided to check out the specialized coffees.    I’m used to getting the Cuppuccino there, which isn’t Starbucks but it’s also not Starbucks prices.  However, I went straight for the ordering screens and called up a large Frozen Caramel Mocha with whole milk, white chocolate, regular coffee, whip Cream, and an extra flavor shot for $4.59.

CRACK!  OMG CRACK!  I love it!  I love it!   OW, I JUST FROZE THE LEFT HALF OF MY BRAIN.  I CAN'T MOVE MY RIGHT ARM.

I must stress that it will induce brain freeze, I don’t know why.  Most other frozen drinks do not cause me brain freeze.   This does every time.

I could have gotten away from since I had the tires replaced.  However, I got a Sheetz card which gets me $0.03 off a gallon at the pump and also gets me free drinks and food, granted I buy enough of them.   It's like giving a crack addict access to buying crack on eBay and a fully loaded PayPal account. 

This is, of course, an attempt to compete with Giant Eagle’s GetGo. There, you can get $0.10 off per gallon for every $50 you spend on groceries.  Not to mention, the run specials on getting additional pennies off when you buy a coffee or fountain drink or sandwiches in the gas station.  Also, for every 10 gallons of gas you pump, you get 1% off your grocery bill which can be accumulated over time and used for more savings on big grocery bills.

But back to the crack.  I find myself making excuses to go to Sheetz.  "Oh, look I have almost a half tank of gas, better fill up.  Hey, it's $0.03 off per gallon.  Why not?"   I've even gone out of my way on my trip home to find a Sheetz, just to get a damn frozen mocha.  I am the Jeff Conaway of frozen coffee drinks.  Call Dr. Drew.  Call Juan Valdez.  Call Dr. Oz and let me explain what my coffee poop looks like.  It floats and could get a dung beetle high on caffeine.

However, this all has to end.   I am looking to take a little trip next month and in order to pay for it, I better save some money.  I should probably also save some waistline, if I expect to not have to pay for more than one seat on the flight.   So, once again, I'm going cold turkey, or in this case, warm turkey, by giving up my new addiction.  Every time I get that urge to go across Hell's Half Acre to find a Sheetz, I'll simply take $5.00 and put it away for the trip. 

One last thought.  This addiction to Sheetz's frozen mochas reminds me of a sketch from The Kids in the Hall.  Enjoy.