kirktastic

today was like most Tuesdays except I turned off my alarm instead of going to the gym. I realize on the bus I left my badge for work and my iphone headphones in my car.

I get to work and accidentally walk into the ladies’ room.

Then had a series of mind numbing meetngs. The only positve note was I found some old ghetto headphones in my desk that I altered to work on the Jesusphone. Then more meetngs.

Now I’m on the bus going up e and need to piss like a racehorse. I just want to get home and crawl NTP bed and try again tomorrow.

It is kitty anniversary weekend. Peanut and Doodlebug came to live with me 4th of July weekend in 2001. At first they weren’t too keen on my and their new surroundings. They really did not dig the car ride to my place. It must have been gee, 10 miles. It took a few weeks for them to finally warm up to me and realize as far as humans go, their new human didn’t suck that bad. There were few ground rules: don’t puke on the carpet or furniture, don’t scratch the sofa. They think of these rules as mere guidlines. They are demanding. If their food is not in the bowl, the water dish not full of cold clean water, and their litter box is not tidy, they will let me know. If you’ve every had a 18 pound cat jump on you at 2am while you are asleep, it only takes once or twice to always remember to make sure the bowl has food in it before going to bed. Although sometimes she does it to fuck with me. Even sweet kitties like Pea and Doodlebug have a little evil in them.

They can be a pain in the ass, but most of the time they are a pleasure to have around. Peanut always likes to hang out with me. If I’m on the sofa watching TV, she’ll be on the sofa with me. If I go into the kitchen, she follows me or at least moves to a position to nap to make sure I’m not doing something that she should be a part of — like eating turkey. She sleeps in my bed and when I turn out the lights and get ready for bed, she’ll go into the bedroom and stake our her place on the guest pillow. The Doodlebug is a little more aloof and doesn’t want to come across as some sort of lacky so she’ll do whatever she wants. But she will make a point of coming to get her head and ears itched after I get home from work. She has a few favorite spots. The chest of drawers in my bedroom is at the perfect height for her to stand on and get a commanding view of the room, and when I walk by she can demand to be petted. It is also too high for Peanut to jump so she doesn’t have to worry about fighting for the territory. Her other favorite place is a cabinet in my bathroom — again too high for Peanut to jump to. She can’t open the door herself since it is so high from the ground like she can the floor level doors, but she’ll let me know if I accidentally shut it. Rather than the clean linens I kept on that shelf, I now put an old beach towel for her to sit on.

The cats were 3 years old (Doodlebug was born in August 1997, Peanut in September 1997) and now they are 10. They won’t be around forever and I couldn’t imagine not having them around. Because of Peanut’s weight issues and refusal to diet she will probably pass on to her next life before the Doodlebug. They’re like good friends that can cheer me up when I’m feeling down and entertain me with their silliness.

So in the weekly recap from my spamfilter I found an email from a recruiter from a major corporation in was flagged as spam with a relatively high spam assassin score. Inside the email I didn’t find anything spamtacular. She had an address from said major corporation, she address the email directly to me, the salutation was to me. But still the robot that reads my mail decided it was crap and kept it from polluting my iPhone and MacBookPro’s inbox.

But a gem like this sails right through…

What I love about spam that was clearly written by someone who speaks English as a second or third language is the awesomeness of the copy.

First, the email is from Hubs Accrues. If that isn’t an awesome name from random words in a computer and/or financial terms dictionary I don’t know what is.

Then there’s the subject line: Breaking news for you! mow sexism. First breaking news just like they say on cable news outlets anytime the wind changes directon. But it is for me! Then mow sexism. I am really against an ism and sexism is one of the biggies. The world would be a better place if all the sexist pigs stepped off a cliff. But to “mow sexism” ? That might be a novel approach! Of course I’m going to open it.

Sadly the message may not even be for me, it was addressed to elvis_the_king@musician.org. So the National Enquirer was right all these years, Elvis is still alive and he’s working on ridding the world of sexism!

Since it passed the spam test at the host, Mac Mail was satisfied and brought it into my inbox and allowed the images to load. Great, another boner pill ad. One time I couldn’t get it up. Once! And even though she said that I shouldn’t worry about it, it happens to everyone, it is no big deal and we could just hold each other. Little did I know she’d sell my name to the boner pill salesmen.

The photo is of a young couple which either just either had or are about to have mind blowing sex. And some dude that looks like he was clipped out of a student loan spam as if they covered of someone else’s logo or call to action with that goofy guy.

The headline is brutal: 50% of men experience so form of sexual dysfunction. Wow. I could be part of that half. Of course, I am since that one time (only once!) I had problems in that department. But could it happen again? Maybe I should go hide under my bed or become a celibate monk.

The ad looks totally different below the hero image. More evidence it was probably cobbled together with other’s intellectual property and the bottom part is using the awesome graphic design prowess of Microsoft Paint or possibly even PowerPoint instead of Adobe Illustrator.

Killer subhead that is larger than the hero headline: SOLVE THIS PROBLEM AND BECOME ONE THESE HAPPINESS PEOPLE.

Happiness people? The happy couple maybe, but that student loan ad loser at the bottom? Please. And the 50% disfunction claim was about all men, mostly older dudes like your dad’s age. If guys in that picture are having problems getting it up they are either a) really really drunk [whiskey dick] or b) aren’t turned on by women and when she leaves the guy and the student loan guy can get it on w/o the need for pills.

Then there’s an offer for the pills which I don’t know is better than what Walgreens or CVS might offer. There’s a claim of saving hundreds of dollars so it has to be a great deal. And there’s a ribbon award saying that there’s guarantee. I’m sure if a customer is not satisfied, these guys will be more than happy to issue a refund. After all, it is an email from a nonexistent email address to someone else and missing the US required mailing address info on email communication.

The email ends with “your problems in bed are posible to solve”. Assuming they mean possible, I don’t think that’s possible. The only problem I have in bed is due to a chubby cat that will sometimes decide to expel a hair ball in the middle of the night. Almost 100% of the time, I can solve this problem by just yelling her name where she will jump off the bed and play “hide the hair ball” game for me to play the next morning.

[I just realized that my neighbors must really not appreciate hearing "PEANUT!" through the wall at 2am from time to time. I don't appreciate hearing the squeaky box springs of when my amorous neighbors upstairs are getting it on. Fortunately for me the guy upstairs rarely lasts over a minute. Perhaps I should print this spam and put it in their door as the flying from the Mattress Store didn't work]

The title of today’s post comes from an old X song. It came out after Billy Zoom left the band and when Dave Alvin was in the band. The whole albume has a much more country/pre-alt country vibe to it. Anyhoo, today’s date reminds me of this song more than the old patriotic ditties that came from the 19th century.

History. The 4th of July is a holiday celebrating the day the evil terrorist insurgents in the English colony of America had their insurrection and had the audacity to proclaim its independence from England, one of the largest superpowers of the time. As a strategic part of the British Empire, they did not let the backwater yokels (many of them religious fanatics) take the resources that were paid for and financed by the Crown. With the help of the French (without it, these insurgents would have be easily put down and order restored, the United States would remain an British territory much like Canada and Australia for several more year. The fact that 21st Century Americans forget this fact when they call on boycotts of France and French goods — remember Freedom Fries — because France didn’t think invading Iraq was a good idea). Eventually, the British decided the Americans could sod off and cut them loose. As history is written by the winners, you may have learned in school that these insurgents were patriots and heroes and that Britain was the evil empire. One person’s terrorist is another’s freedom fighter. This hasn’t changed since humans started rallying around a common flag, and probably won’t until space aliens come and the race must set aside its petty differences to battle a threat from outer space.

In other news, yesterday was a good day except for the work part. I had an appointment with my doctor to go over my blood tests last week. My A1c is down to non-diabetic levels. My cholesterol is “normal” and my triglycerides (which is like cholesterol but a type of fat in your blood) is down to normal (normal = 150. when I was first diagnosed with the beetus, it was at 4,500… over the years I got it well below 1000, but had struggled with getting it below 400 until now). My blood pressure is normal. In other words, if I eat right and exercise, I can be healthy and live a normal life. If I fall off the wagon, I could be dead in 5 years. So that was great positive reinforcement.

Since I was working from my home — or a nearby coffeehouse as I tend to do — before lunch my buddy from the office (also working from his home) said he was going to Wahoos with for lunch and I should meet them, in the IM he teased me that if I got on the bus right then (9:30) I could meet them at 11:30. Interestingly, I hadn’t thought of taking the bus downtown since mentally I had bus=work, but it got me thinking. There are express buses that go downtown every half hour and Wahoo’s is only a few blocks from where I get dropped off. And I have a bus pass and a desire not to drive, or find parking and then find coins for the meter, etc. So I took the bus. I was surprised how crowded it was. For one thing the park and ride spots were full but I was able to get a spot a construction worker had just opened up. The bus itself was full — with a lot of students going to UT.

After lunch I decided to stay downtown and work from a coffeehouse I used to frequent a few years ago when I was on my sabbatical (a nice way of saying jobless) called Halcyon on 4th and Lavaca. Lots of comfy sofas, wifi, outlets for my shitty work computer, and cute girls. What a change from the usual corporate coffee places I’ve been going to around my house. (On Wednesday I took an earlier bus downtown on my way to work and stopped by the Austin Java at City Hall to get some coffee while waiting for my bus to the office). When I had a enough work and iced tea, I walked to the corner and got on the express bus home (which was less crowded and I used the wifi the whole time wrapping up work before the 3-day weekend).

This morning I went to Tacodeli for my tacos blancos con queso y chorizo (that’s egg white tacos with cheese and chorizo to the gringos) and rather than go to the myriad of Starbucks I decided to go to the little local place in the same strip mall called Sodade (nothing but great things said about them on yelp). I went over to their shop and saw their window was broken. The owners were there (they were going to be closed today for the holiday) because someone broke into their store last night. They said the crooks stolen the cash register but it only had $5 in quarters in it. It will cost a lot to fix the glass today for $5 in quarters. I was pretty saddened by hearing this. Here’s a couple that owns a small business and to have this happen was sad. I’m sure at least a dozen Starbucks in the US were broken into last night but to a giant faceless corporations it does feel as bad to me.

So I’m at Starbucks having my morning fix. It really is one of the only choices in this neighborhood and besides I have a balance on my Starbucks Card. Among giant faceless corporations Starbucks is one of the better ones. But I think I’m going to start going to Sodade more and support the little guy. At least now, I don’t feel like if I’m not frequenting Starbucks I’m not taking food from out of the mouths of babies.

When I lived in California, I couldn’t fathom living anywhere else. Especially fucking Texas.

I want to talk about gym etiquette. When you’re up in the gym just a workin’ on your fitness, there are a few things to keep in mind:

1. Old men, please cover up in the locker room. I really don’t want to see an old naked guy while I’m getting dressed. You don’t need to stand there naked watching Sports Center (your gym’s locker room has a big TV lounge, right?). And what is with guys that seem to need to shave/brush their teeth naked in front of the sink?
2. And those fucks that spit out their gum in the shower? Fuck you. You had to have passed six trash cans to get to the shower, could you have not used one of those, or waited until you when back to your locker and spit it out then? Do you do this at home?
3. For the love of all that is good and holy, wipe down your machines when you’re done. No one wants to touch equipment that you slimed all over. The gym provides an abundance of hand towels to keep you dry and moistened paper towels to wipe off the machines when you’re done. I sweat a lot and wouldn’t imagine leaving a machine all gross and sweaty when I’m done. It is called being a member of civilized society.
4. The machines aren’t to rest on and shoot the shit on, if you’re not using them to exercise move along. I don’t have all fucking day and when you’re using the machine I want as your easy chair to sit and talk about how much it costs to fill up your SUV, it makes me want to punch you in the face.
5. If you don’t know how to use a machine, please ask someone that either works there or another member. You’re going to hurt yourself or the machine doing that. Everyone there was new once and doesn’t mind helping a n00b. But if you’re completely clueless, hire a trainer to show you the ropes. It will be well worth the money spent since you won’t be wasting your time doing something ineffective and/or counterproductive rather than getting a good workout.
6. Just because the cafe in the gym is in the gym, doesn’t make all the food really healthy. One of the reasons you might not be seeing results is you’re erasing what ever calories you’ve burned upstairs on the delicious, but not really nutritious foodstuffs. I see an overweight lady with her young adult overweight daughter than workout for only 30 minutes and reward themselves with a Coke and some of the worst food on the menu. That 20oz Coke has 240 calories and 65g of carbs. It takes me 20 minutes on the StepMill to burn that many calories. You guys aren’t even breaking a sweat walking on the treadmill for half an hour. So really, you should have stayed home and would have been better off. Drinking a Coke once in a while is fine, but drinking one for breakfast every day is why you can’t fit in your pants.

The people that I complain about are few in number but ruin the experience for the rest of us. I love to see new fat people in the gym and that they’ve decided to do something about their lifestyle. It is motivating to see them get results and disheartening when they give up. I know how hard it is to motivate yourself to get your ass into the gym. I know how it feels to believe you’ve worked your ass off but haven’t seen results. I know how yummy the fast food tastes. I know how hard it is to find time to workout. I also know how it feels when your doctor tells you that you need to eat better and exercise or you’ll be dead in a few years.

But you know what? It isn’t that hard. Two months ago I wasn’t going to the gym. I would eat excessive amounts of everything that was tasty ignoring the fact I have Wilfred Brimley Disease and doing nothing about it. When my friends GREAT GRANDMOTHER had an easier time climbing the hills and stairs in old town Puerto Vallarta than I did, it helped me realize just how I’ve let myself go. When I got home, I started going to the gym and eating better. I went to the doctor and he was very concerned about my cholesterol and blood pressure and how I was setting myself up for a heart attack. That reenforced my desire to finally do something. Well, two months after I started, I’m 32 pounds (14.5kg) lighter, I’ve lost 3 inches around my waist. My resting heart rate has gone from being 82 bpm to 62bpm. My blood sugar levels are never at diabetic levels anymore. I feel a lot better all damn day and I sleep like a cat at night. (I’ve stopped using babies as a comparison for sleeping since parents of babies have told me that babies don’t sleep for shit). I still have a long way to go to get where I want to be. I have a few pair of old school Levi 501 shrink to fit that I want to wear again. You know the kind that you have to buy in a larger size and wash a few dozen times before they start to fit you and only you. I also want to get to the point where I can stop taking my diabetes medicine ($1000 a month if I didn’t have insurance, $120 a month in copays with it). I’m still fat, but not as fat as I was. I’m not fit, but in much better shape than I was. I still have a long way to go and really for it to stick, I can’t go back to being a sloth and gluttonous (the other 5 deadly sins I’m OK with breaking on a daily basis).

Yesterday I had to have blood taken so it interrupted my way-before-the-crack-of-dawn routine of going to the gym and then then bus. The upside is I worked from home so I got 9 hours of sleep. I decided to take a day off from the gym (first I was merely postponing the workout until later in the day, but eventually I gave myself permission to take the day off provided a: I didn’t also go on an eating binge and b: I definitely went on Saturday. Even god needed a rest, according to some literature I’ve read. An official reason for not going to the gym before the appointment is I’ve found when I have a really great workout, my blood sugar actually goes up temporarily while my body releases stored carbs and fat and converts them to fuel, so in order to make sure my blood sugar level is as low as I can while fasting, I keep the cardio to a minimum). Wow, that parenthetical was longer than the paragraph itself.

They say that it takes eight weeks for a behavioral change to become a habit. I don’t know who they are or where I read that. But in the past eight weeks, going to the gym and eating well has become somewhat routine. The guilt when I miss a workout is there so maybe there’s hope for me yet.

Of course, one of the behavioral changes I’ve made is become a morning person. So when I woke up this morning, fully refreshed and ready to take on the world at 630am without the aide of an alarm clock or hungry cat, I decided to roll out of bed and hit the gym. If there’s a bad side about my gym is on the weekends it is overrun by children with all the activities in the gymnasium/rock wall and the outdoor pool with the waterslide. So it was nice to get there without the constant reminders of why I insist on using birth control. The workout was great. I went up on all my weights lifting and am almost ready to move up a level on the StepMill. After the workout I showered and had a nice non-rushed cup of coffee and protein shake while I got to watch the attractive moms come in with their kids. A perfect Saturday morning and it wasn’t even 930 yet!

32 pounds for those keeping score at home.

I remember some Saturdays I’d stay in bed until noon not too long ago. Then again, 10 years ago I would get up at 6 am to go mountain biking before it got too hot. I’m glad I got my workout done for the day and if it wasn’t so fucking hot already I’d think about fixing the flat on my bike’s tire and go riding. But it is fucking hot already.

How hot is it? It is the hottest June ever! (maybe not ever, but in a long damn time). The scary part is it really doesn’t start cooking here until July.

I’m at one of the 293 Starbucks near my house under a shade tree enjoying an unsweetened green iced tea. This Starbucks and the one a block away are usually filled with old Vietnamese-American men smoking cigarettes and shooting the shit in Vietnamese about whatever old guys talk about. Probably about sports and women. John McCain would probably go totally Manchurian Candidate in this place. That unstable old fuck. Me? I like it when the men’s hot daughters or granddaughters come to pick them up.

OK. It is officially too hot to be sitting outside, shady tree on not.

Take that nutrition goals! I was not happy with that C average the weekend before last. So I adjusted my eating habits to get my GPA up. After dinner tonight I actually had a slice of cheese because I was 53 calories short of my goal for the day. Obsess much? No, not me.
Speaking of calories, Gyminee makes up the calories I expend whilst at the gym since I don’t write down — nor can I remember the numbers — but my watch does a better job. Gyminee said burned 562 calories this morning while you lazy bums were all sleeping. But Mr. Polar watch says 681. It said my max HR was 156 with an average of 121. That’s nothing, on Saturday I did 1196 calories with max HR 156 average of 126. Meanwhile, Gyminee says I lifted 29,067.5 pounds and stairclimed/ellipticalled 73.04 miles. Obsess much? Not really.

The Bus. Sure, I’ve not paid the big oil companies about $80 of my money and I’ve not put 350 pounds of emissions but I think what I like most is the fact I get to relax getting to and from the office. Instead of sitting on the sofa and decompressing after work, I get that taken care of on the bus.

Finally, something good on the internets: 50 of the hottest chicks dressed as Wonder Woman. Hot chick is sometimes subject to debate, but all of the ladies are dressed as Wonder Woman.

Dammit. Had to buy gas today. $70. But I should squeeze three weeks out of this due to bus ridin’ badassness.

Great news! I’m not going blind. But having my eyes dilated yesterday sucked. The short drive home was a treat. I’m too blind to drive w/o glasses so the shades were out. But it was so bright it hurt to see. And the dilation made my glasses not really work so everything was fuzzy — but a different fuzzy than w/o lenses. I could see far away, but I couldn’t see up close. So I went to sleepy town when I got home. Today with a brand new pair of contacts it was like I had bionic vision without the sound effects. My prescription hadn’t changed but I wore that last pair of contacts into the ground.

what a long week. I didnt think Friday would get here. The best part is I’m working outside and it is a cool 79 degrees. It is overcast so the sun isn’t blazing.

Yesterday the bus ride home felt like I was on the bus. The bus got to my stop late so I missed the connection downtown. I moved to a business class seat but it was on the left side so I was on the blazing sun the whole ride home. The bus was full so I couldnt change seats.

But the cool part is I haven’t had to buy gas in over two weeks. Take that exxon and shell!