Sucess

I had plans today to meet my friends Kevin and Brian for lunch.  They live in Danbury, CT while I live in Albany, NY.  But they had shopping plans at a place roughly half way between where we live and where they live, so it's pretty easy to meet for lunch.  Last month we had the same plan and on the day we got a snow storm.  Today we were supposed to get more snow, but the forecast slowly evolved through the week and the weather held off long enough to make lunch happen.  Shortly after getting home things got icy, but that's post-lunch and that's all that counts.  The Danbury boys are great.  We've set up a date for next month already and I can get to hoping March doesn't schedule another annoying storm for the same day.

As icy as it got, I still managed to make it to the gym.  There were two big reasons pushing me to go.  The first was that big ol' burger I had for lunch.  It was as deadly as it was delicious.  The other reason was I was so close to smashing the 200 mile mark, I couldn't keep myself away.  Slick road be damned!  I knew I was about 8 1/2 miles away, but I couldn't remember exactly how far.  I did just under 8 1/2 on the elliptical, so once I was done there, I jumped on a treadmill for another 2 1/4, just to be sure!  202 and counting!  I just might even allow myself a day off tomorrow.  We'll see....

This Week

This week has been an odd one.  The storms mid week really threw everything off.  Thursday and Friday didn't feel like Thursday or Friday, but more like Monday and Tuesday.  And now it's Friday night and I'm more confused than ever.  I'm just glad the weekend is here again.  I need to rest.

I really pushed myself hard at the gym this week.  I thought the weather was going to limit my access, but I was mistaken.  I've been five out of the last six days.  As for my 1,200 mile goal for the year, I'm in an excellent place with it right now.  I'm about 8.5 miles away from hitting my end of February goal.  That's pretty damn great considering it's only February 4th today.  I'm  undecided about the gym for tomorrow.  Depends on what time tomorrow afternoon I get home from my hot lunch date.  And the weather is giving me the evil eye about it, too.  I had to cancel last month's lunch date with the Danbury boys because of a storm.  We have another one tomorrow (both storm and lunch date.  What fun!) but it looks like it shouldn't be too bad.  Gonna chance it.

Last week I decided to dust off the Kate Bush discography and chose one album each day to play (and some days, I chose two.)  I like how that played out (no pun intended.)  I've decided to do that often.  This week I chose Big Country.  I forgot how much I really like them.  This is a good exercise to pursue.  Pick an artist and give their discography a fresh listen.  I haven't decided who next week's victim is going to be yet, but I'll figure it out by Monday.

Damn You, Taylor the Latte Boy

Guess what song I woke up to playing in my head this morning? Yup, Different Worlds by Maureen McGovern, more commonly known as the theme from Angie. And it's all Taylor The Latte Boy's fault.

Ollie And I Build An IKEA Bookshelf

 

Snowpocalypse!!

I'm really starting to get tired of the term "snowpocalypse" in a big way.  Yes, it's snowing.  Yes, it's been snowing a lot this winter.  Yes, we're no longer accustomed to this much snow out of a single winter.  But it's not the end of the fucking world.  It's an inconvenience and nothing more.  It's only February 1st.  We've only just entered the snowy part of the winter.  It's going to be a long two months until we're out of all of this.  And I don't know what's worse, all the snow or all the people in the office going on and on like the world is going to end.  Actually, I do know what's worse.  Hurry up spring!

I had every intention of working all day today.  I went in early, like I do every day.  The roads were already getting pretty slick at 6:15, but they were entirely passable.  But the snow was coming down at a pretty good clip.  Much quicker and heavier than I had anticipated.  As the morning progressed, I decided it was probably a good idea to leave early, get a jump start on the driveway and chill out the rest of the day in preparation for tomorrow's bigger snowstorm.  I left in time to catch the 12:55 bus to my parking lot.  Only that bus never came.  I stood outside for 40 minutes (I got to the bus stop ten minutes before the scheduled time) before my bus came.  There was someone else waiting at the stop and when my bus stopped, he asked if that bus was going to his lot. It wasn't.  The man said that his bus was scheduled to be here at that time.  The driver, in a very cool tone, mentioned that because of the rotten conditions out right now that there were no bus schedules today.  They get there when they get there.  That explains why my bus was so late. 

I got to my parking lot only to see that I was slightly plowed in my spot.  

I got out easy enough and the drive home maybe took me 3 minutes longer than usual.  Even though I was going much slower, with no traffic on the road, I made up a lot of time.  The plow had left a snowbank about 3 to 4 feet tall at the foot of my driveway.  I decided that it wasn't going to be enough to stop me so I plowed right through.  And got stuck half way up the driveway.  Joy.  

I spent the next hour digging myself out and cleaning out the driveway so that Ken could get up it and into the garage when he got home.  My sciatic nerve is already giving me a few choice words about shoveling.  I can only image what it's going to say tomorrow when the light and fluffy snow of today is replaced with the wet and heavy snow.  Maybe I can find a heating pad to mediate our discussions.

I really do love how everything looks when it's covered with fresh snow.  The world looks like it's a peace.  I especially love the look when there's ice involved, no matter how dangerous it really is.  The above photo is my backyard as of 4 o'clock this afternoon.  We've got another foot to foot and a half coming.  I can't wait to see how pretty it's all going to look tomorrow.

What Have I Done Today To Make Me Feel Proud?

Well, I worked my ass off at the gym tonight.  That's what I did.  I had no intention of going tonight.  I've settled into my Tue/Thurs/Sat/Sun routine nicely and plan on keeping it that way.  However, we have a one-two punch of winter weather coming and it's getting in the way of my schedule.  Tomorrow we're supposed to get anywhere from four to eight inches of snow followed by another foot to two feet depending on which station you believe on Wednesday.  With that weather coming, I could easily have blown off tonight, but I'd miss the next couple nights, too, and I didn't want to do that.  I've got myself almost completely over my gym phobia and I'm feeling really good about all the exercise I've been doing.  I don't exactly look forward to the exercise, but I do look forward to logging in what I've done in my exercise tracker.  It's almost the same thing, right?  Oh, and I really love the endorphin rush that hits me about half way home.  

As I mentioned in many previous posts, I'm working my way through a 1,200 mile goal for the year.  That means it's just 100 miles a month, which seems like a lot.  And to be honest, it kind of is.  But I've been dedicated to meeting my goal and this being the last day of the month, I can honestly announce to the world that I'm so fucking proud of what I've achieved.  Not only did I hit my goal for the month, but I'm more than half way to February's goal.  As of tonight, the last day of January, I'm at 164.14 miles.  This means that I can be a little easier on myself if I want to, though I know I won't allow myself to be.  My goal when I get to the gym is to pump out about 6 miles and I tell myself I'll be happy with that.  But knowing how I am, I push harder and harder to hit bigger numbers.  The last two nights I've hit the biggest numbers I've hit yet.  Last night was 8.75 miles and tonight was 9.59 miles.

I did a screen capture of my January workouts.  I really can't believe this is something that I did.  Me.  Big fat Walt.  I'm in the best shape of my entire life and I know I still have loads of room for improvement.  I can't wait to see how the rest of 2011 goes!

Weekend

It's Sunday night as I sit here on the computer and contemplate going to bed.  I'm pretty tired.  Last week was a really long week for some reason.  It didn't help that when I got to work on Thursday, I went to sign in on my time card and got the shock of my life.  It wasn't Thursday.  It was only Wednesday.  I somehow got a day ahead of myself and that kind of set the rest of the week up to drag.  And did it ever.

This weekend Ken and I went to New Jersey to spend the weekend with his friend Jim.  That meant getting up at the crack of dawn on Saturday so that we could be on the road by 7am.  Saturday is the one day that I allow myself to sleep in as long as I want (or more specifically, as long as Ollie will let me.)  Before getting to Jim's house, we made our customary stop at IKEA and loaded up on unassembled furniture, drinking glasses and picture frames.  I got the final bookcase I think I need for my office.  Once it's assembled, it's going to look like a library in here.  But that can wait until I've got a little time.  It's a big bookcase and will take a little bit of time to assemble.

The weekend at Jim's was fun.  We did a bunch of shopping around (Ken wanted to check out a few places for patio furniture) and some eating.  I was going to try to behave myself, but our first stop was 5 Guys for burgers.  It's been a while and it was delicious as ever.  I like the burgers there, but not everyone does.  And that's fine.  For dinner we went to this Italian place.  I forget the name, but I want to say it's something like Bluestone.  Italian places are hard for me because I try to stay away from pasta and excess red sauce and there's always a lot of bread around to eat.  I looked at the salads on the menu but ended up getting the eggplant parm lasagne and it was completely worth it.  So good.  Not to mention all the freaking bread I ate.  Ken actually got the salad I was looking at and I'm so glad I didn't get it.  It didn't look all that good to me.

We hit the road after breakfast this morning, making a stop or two on the way home.  After the car was unloaded, I got changed and went to the gym to try to work off a little of the damage I did this weekend.  Dinner was ready when I got home and after doing the dishes, I had a bowl of ice cream.  I always regret when I have a moment of weakness in the supermarket and buy a tub of ice cream, but it was really good.  I stayed away from sweets all weekend, so I don't feel as bad about it.  Tomorrow the scale may call me horrible names, but I'll cross that bridge when I get to it.

127.46

Hot 100

I think I've mentioned before that one thing I'm fascinated by is statistics.  All kinds of statistics.  And rankings.  I love all that kind of shit.  There's a website that combines my love of statistical lists and music and I obsess over it.  The site is last.fm.  It tracks your music listening.  You can download a widget from the site and it will log everything you play via iTunes (or your preferred music player) and it will also extract what you listened to on your iPod to keep a running total of what you're playing, how often you're playing it and all that nonsense.  I just did a quick capture of my 100 most played artists according to the website with the number of plays for each artist.  I've logged 170,938 plays since June 10, 2007.  It's a weird list to look at sometimes.  And remember, I just finished up a challenge to myself where I wanted to make sure everything in my iTunes library was registering at least 2 plays, so artists with bigger catalogs tend to rank higher than those with fewer releases.  I guess that makes my list slightly skewed, but who cares.  That challenge is over and all my play counts in iTunes were reset when I moved the library off my desktop and onto an external drive.

And you don't have to say it because I know it.  I listen to a lot of cheese.  I like cheese.  So there.

1		Dolly Parton		2,095
2		Tina Turner		1,782
3		Cher		1,652
4		Barbra Streisand		1,421
5		Elton John		1,399
6		Diana Ross		1,182
7		The Cure		1,118
8		The Rolling Stones		1,038
9		Indigo Girls		912
10		Queen		910
11		Spandau Ballet		869
12		Frank Sinatra		855
13		Prince		854
14		Barry Manilow		846
15		Eurythmics		824
15		Judy Garland		824
17		The Beatles		758
18		Aretha Franklin		757
19		Duran Duran		755
20		Billy Bragg		752
21		David Bowie		747
22		Ike & Tina Turner		736
23		Sheena Easton		730
24		ABC		729
25		Tori Amos		719
26		Liza Minnelli		713
27		Johnny Cash		700
28		Jill Sobule		692
29		Madonna		690
30		R.E.M.		681
31		Nena		650
32		Pet Shop Boys		636
33		ABBA		610
34		Barenaked Ladies		607
35		Squeeze		606
36		Elvis Costello		602
36		Ramones		602
38		They Might Be Giants		585
38		Alison Moyet		585
40		Depeche Mode		573
41		Falco		562
42		Morrissey		557
42		Rick Astley		557
44		Blondie		556
45		Elvis Presley		552
46		Kim Wilde		541
47		The Pretenders		538
47		Erasure		538
49		Nanci Griffith		534
50		Wesley Willis		528
51		Devo		520
52		Harry Connick, Jr.		512
53		Talking Heads		507
54		Porter Wagoner & Dolly Parton		502
55		Donna Summer		493
56		Madness		465
56		Sheryl Crow		465
58		Richard Cheese		454
59		Neil Diamond		453
60		Eartha Kitt		450
61		Cyndi Lauper		449
62		Glee Cast		448
63		New Order		436
64		Jason Mraz		434
65		Shirley Bassey		433
65		Howard Jones		433
67		Emmylou Harris		427
68		Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark		425
69		Aimee Mann		423
70		Juliana Hatfield		418
71		Bette Midler		415
72		Shawn Colvin		410
73		Ben Folds		409
74		XTC		401
74		Dusty Springfield		401
74		Ultravox		401
77		Melissa Etheridge		399
78		Lyle Lovett		398
79		Lisa Loeb		397
80		a-ha		393
81		Sinéad O'Connor		392
82		Rick Springfield		387
82		Pat Benatar		387
84		Bananarama		386
85		Dwight Yoakam		384
86		Suzanne Vega		380
87		Cowboy Junkies		378
87		The Human League		378
89		Placebo		377
90		John Wesley Harding		376
91		Willie Nelson		375
92		Everything but the Girl		373
92		James Taylor		373
94		Robbie Williams		372
95		Lady Gaga		369
96		Eels		364
97		Crowded House		361
98		Cracker		355
99		Camper Van Beethoven		351
100		The Onion		350