So Begins The Fitness

I’m going through a phase of my life right now where there’s a lot of crappy, negative energy all around me. I need to right the boat and get myself back into a cohesive mental state. Energy is being spent all over the place and I have no order to things. The correction is two-fold: make a better mind and make a better body. I’ve gone down this road in the past and know how to do it, and I must start doing it again. To balance my mental state and gain clarity of thought, I have decided to begin studying Tantra again. I was a practitioner for years earlier in my life, and it brought me to a place where I could enjoy life and see things for what they were without losing my place in reality. I don’t practice from a religious perspective, but I use the philosophical and mental disciplines to my advantage, mostly through meditation. I believe inner peace can come from this, and that through such balance my creativity, thought processes, and most importantly, love of life will begin anew.

My second task is much harder for me, but I will conquer it; that of physically correcting myself. I have many things that will help me obtain health. One is that I must begin to eat properly. This I’ve started several days ago with the help of a good friend during the day, and continue to do so during evenings and weekend time. I am beginning to work out again as well, and am about to head into the gym as I type this. Lastly, I need more than running and strength training to satisfy my urge to be physical, so, as of this coming Wednesday, I’ll be playing hockey again at least once per week.

Part of this website is for you, part is for me. So, I plan to journal these things up here as much as I can, even if it’s just private blog posts that you’ll never read. One thing that will keep me going is an old idea I used to abide by: Effort=Results=Satisfaction. The real trick is to put enough Effort into things to make Results occur. However it is equally important to analyze the Results so that it may produce Satisfaction which, ultimately, fuels more Effort. Hence an endless upward trend.

I went out and picked up a helmet, stick, and a few rolls of both black and white friction tape yesterday in preparation for the practice on Wednesday. I’m sure I’ll be sufficiently sore on Thursday, but I’m going to try to minimize that with the workouts over the next few days.

While out yesterday I stopped in at the theater. There’s no better way to start the summer then strapping in and letting some blockbuster movies take a hold of your senses and send you into imagination land. Yesterday I saw Iron Man at the theater down the road. And man, I gotta tell you it was really good. Smart, funny, and full of action. Robert Downey Jr. played the best role I’ve ever seen him in. Go see it. Tell your friends to see it. Next on the list is Indiana Jones.

I also picked up a copy of Roger WatersThe Pros and Cons of Hitch Hiking album on CD, which I’ve heard is really good. I’m ripping the CD now. Also been watching a lot of old Battlestar Galactica lately, trying to get Shauna caught up to season 4.

Time to go stretch out and hit the gym.

Sick Thought of the Day: Pliers on the spine. Squeeze; the tearing of membrane, the oozing of puss. The body goes limp.

A Little Sore, A Lot Busy

Things have been crazy at the office this past week, preventing me (out of sheer exhaustion) from posting any entries up here. We’re still on target to begin our office move next week, but I’m starting to doubt whether it’ll really happen. There are a few factors outside of our control influencing the move, and those deadlines seem to be slipping. In any case, it seems that my body isn’t used to standing all day anymore and the lifting and bending I’m doing is beginning to take its toll on my lower back. I’m sure it’ll just be a matter of time before my muscles remember how to do all this.

This weekend is going to be full of Suncoast Studios work. I plan to spend tons of time working on Eman’s project. I feel bad that I haven’t been able to spend more time on it, as I know he’s waiting for something solid. The only real challenge is coming up with a friendly, easy way to make the animation of some text work. The more I delve into it, the more difficult it seems, but I think that I’m just starting to peer too deeply. I need to resurface on that line of thought and maybe a simple way will present itself to me.

Speaking of Suncoast Studios, I finished the basic layout of the Suncoast Studios Publishing division this past week. This part of the company was used to develop Jeff’s book, and now that I’ve got another author interested, I need to make it a bit more formal. Feel free to visit the new site. Over the coming weeks it’ll grow and morph into a business-entity.

Last night I rented Shrek The Third on pay-per-view. I thought it was a great bookend to the trilogy. Pretty funny in some spots.

I finished erasing all the hard drives. I found out that the 10 GB drive was dead, and one of the 40 GB drives actually turned out to only be a 4 GB drive. I need to start reading all the letters and numbers. Anyway, the 4 GB drive was also dead, so I donated the two 40 GB and 80 GB drives to work and have the 200 GB and 160 GB drives here for other projects.

Looks like NetFlix shipped more Lost discs. I can’t wait.

I’m going to go get a haircut and wash the car, then I’ll be back to begin the day’s work.

Sick Thought of the Day: Worms in the poop.

Disks and Discs

Well, it looks like tomorrow night I’ll be finished with erasing these spare hard drives. I’ve decided that I’m going to donate the 10 GB, the three 40 GB, and the 80 GB drives to work. We have plenty of computers that are constantly dying on us, usually because of hard drive failures, so these will be nice to have around.

I’m burning a DVD for Millard right now, and after that I’ll start installing LightWave. I need to jump back in the job for Eman. I want to knock it out of the ballpark. In the meantime, I’ll work on the Suncoast Studios Publishing site.

Shauna and I watched Lost (Season 3, Disc 3) last night. I sent all the NetFlix discs back today, so we may have more episodes to watch this weekend. Assuming I’m not working, which will likely be the case.

It’s gotten cold here in Tampa, with the current temperature around 40 degrees. I started a fire in the fireplace and we’ve almost burned through all the wood we have. I think I may run out and buy more tomorrow.

Sick Thought of the Day: She’s a he. You didn’t find out until the next morning.

Week In Review

Last Monday I worked on a new idea that I’m formulating. A couple of people already have seen a sneak-preview. I’m not going to say too much at this point, as I’m still in the R&D stage, but, if it happens, it’ll be pretty cool. And, of course, sick.

Tuesday was all about the Ford dealership. I took my Mustang in to get a free oil change (I get them free with the car) at 9:00am. I actually go there about ten minutes early and the mechanics got the ball rolling immediately. I was told it’d be about an hour. So, running a little behind, around 10:35am they finally finished. I pick up the keys and walk over to the car and notice that the driver’s side front tire is really low on air. I went into the trunk and grabbed my digital air pressure gauge and find out that the tire has about 10 lbs. of air in it. I tell my service rep and he tells me to get in the car, turn the tires to the right and move ahead slowly. Sure enough, he spots a large nail in the tire. He goes to check if I have road hazard insurance on the tires. At 11:00am he comes back and tells me that I do, but with me now being last in the queue of people and the fact that lunch breaks are happening, they probably won’t get to the car until about 1:00pm. We talk about the tire for a minute and we agree that it’ll hold out for a while, so I decide to go do some Christmas shopping for a couple of hours and come back at 1:00. I headed out and went to Michael’s Crafts and bought some supplies for my aforementioned project. I also did actually do some Christmas shopping. I get back to the dealership around 1:00pm and they take the car. I go and get a bite to eat at McDonald’s which is right next door. I come back, hang out in their lobby, and get the car back and leave around 2:30pm. I ran a couple more errands and went home. That night I watched the Lightning game and saw them lose 1 to 4 to Buffalo.

Wednesday morning I watched the most recent episode of Heroes on NBC.com. I guess they’re gonna be taking a break from episodes for about a month or so, and I think they’re gonna start back up on January 22nd. Ugh. Later that morning, I had a steam cleaner guy come over and do the carpets in the apartment. I did a bunch of paperwork.

Thursday I did a bunch of job hunting and submitted my resume. I was also contacted by a recruiter in Tampa (not the same one I normally use). He wanted to meet with me on Friday and said he’d send me an e-mail with his address and contact info and direction on how to get there. That night, I watched the Lightning kick Atlanta’s asses 8 to 0.

Friday was spent getting things ready, ironing shirts, and planning on going to Tampa. Unfortunately, my 1:30pm appointment came and went and I got no e-mail from the recruiter. I had no way to contact him to remind him of our meeting and that he didn’t send the info he promised. Around 2:30pm he e-mailed me and apologized as he realized he didn’t send out the e-mail. He wanted me to get in touch with him the next week so we could try again.

Saturday was a big day. I met up with my brother-in-law, Glen, and we went out to the SRQ R/C airfield. The SRQ squadron was hosting their Warbird fly-in, which showcases scale WWI and WWII military aircraft. I picked Glen up around 9:30am and we headed to the airfield. We got there around 10:30am. After getting settled, we watched the pilots fly their planes around, had some hot chocolates and doughnuts and talked a while. The announcer stated that there would be a scale jet demonstration at noon and that they were going to open the pits to visitors so they could see the planes up close. Glen and I decided to stick around long enough to see the jet. I love the smell of that jet fuel, as Schunk will tell you. So, while we’re waiting for all that, I get a hot dog for brunch. They then tell us that there’s to be a real, full-scale P51 Mustang flyby around 12:30pm.

Once again, we decide to stay long enough to see that. Time goes by, I get a couple of cheeseburgers and a free hot dog(!) and we look at the planes in the pits, watch the jet demonstration, and, eventually around 1:00pm, see the Mustang fly by.

Glen and I then decide to do what we intended to do that day;’ go Christmas shopping. We head out to the mall, a few stores, and get some shopping done. Around 3:30pm or so, he calls my sister and we decide to all get together with my mom and watch the Lightning hockey game at my place. We picked up my sister and mom and are at my place around 6:00pm or so. The game was starting at 7:30pm. We play some poker while waiting for Shauna to come back from the store, and when she does, I order pizza and we settle in to watch the game. The girls all talked and had fun and Glenn and I watched the game and I showed him my Fantasy Hockey team (he promptly gets engrossed in the Fantasy idea and vows to join next year). The pizza arrives, we eat, drink some beers and have a lot of fun and everyone goes home around 12:30am.

Sunday was a day for relaxing. I installed Star Wars Galaxies on my PC and started playing with it again for the hell of it. I also paid some bills.

Monday was the same, although I did contact the recruiter in Tampa. I have a meeting with him tomorrow. Of course, there was no Heroes last night, so I just played Galaxies. I had to go out and pay the storage unit that day and also ship a couple of boxes to Millard.

Today I have some more bills to pay, and will be doing a bunch more job-hunting. I will most likely play some SWG today and will watch the Lightning game tonight.

Sick Thought of the Day: Anal Taint.

Happy Thanksgiving

I’ve been watching a lot of The Muppet Show courtesy of NetFlix. I decided to take a break from Battlestar Galactica (gasp!). However, the three Muppet discs are going back into the mailbox on Friday and BSG season 2.5 will be on its way to me.

Speaking of great things on the boob-tube, Shauna and I watched a great little independent film the other night called Unknown. The primes of the story is that five guys wake up from being passed out in an abandoned chemical factory with no memory of who they are or why they’re there. As the story progresses, their memories begin to trickle back into their heads and the men begin to piece together what happened and what’s going on.

I cleaned the apartment today and got everything ready for turkey day tomorrow. When Shauna got home from work, we prepped the rutabagas, stuffing, green bean casserole, and make a couple dozen cookies. Tomorrow’s the big day. I’ll post pictures.

It’s been very cool here the last couple of weeks. I think we’ve had the air conditioning off for the entire time. I love it. Each day this past five day or so, I’ve had the windows open and it’s gotten down to 63 to 65 degrees in the apartment with brisk winds blowing the stale air out of the place from time to time. I love winter time in Florida.

Sick Thought of the Day: Mashed potatoes in the butt crack. Cheese optional.

BSG and DS

I’ve been watching a lot of Battlestar Galactica lately thanks to NetFlix. I got the first disc of season one earlier in the week and watched all the episodes that night. Last night I watched disc two in its entirety as well. I’ve also been watching Heroes still, and am loving that too. It’s still very weird to me to be carving out time to watch television shows, but once I catch up on BSG, it’ll be a lot more manageable.

Yesterday I bought a Nintendo DS Lite (I got the Polar White one) and four games to go with it (Brain Age, Dragon Quest Heroes: Rocket Slime, Star Wars: Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, and Retro Atari Classics). I’ve added all four games to the Digital Archive. I mainly got the DS because I’ve never owned a handheld gaming device, save my iPAQ, which I rarely enjoy the games on because of the kludgy controls (PDAs are simply not meant for gaming). That, and the fact that the Wii is coming out soon and Nintendo has stated many times that it will support the wireless features of the DS with the Wii. I think you’ll be able to use the DS as a controller, but will also be able to have special video content on the screens of the DS while playing your Wii games. The system is a lot of fun, and I’ve played each game a bit already, but I’m focusing on Rocket Slime the most right now, as that’s a fantasy RPG.

Well, today I’m going to clean my desk here and begin doing bills. Fun, fun, fun.

Sick Thought of the Day: Cram it in the nasal passage.

Heroes

I watched that new show, Heroes, the other night on NBC. I’m really not a big fan of watching TV, but I wanted to see if this was on par with Battlestar Galactica (which I’ve watched a few episodes of and really liked a lot). And, I think it was pretty damned good. The special effects were decent and the story was pretty good. It’s tough to tell after the first episode, but it’s promising. I’ll end up watching the next two or three episodes to get a better idea. Now I just hope that there were enough viewers so NBC doesn’t pull the plug ala Star Trek:TOS.

Tonight’s agenda: Cleaning the apartment, washing / drying / storing a comforter (1 of 3), and beginning to organize my comics (yeah, yeah, I’m finally getting around to that).

Sick Thought of the Day: My mustard, John’s sweet BBQ sauce, and Kelly’s salty corn nuggets. And a quick knuckle-thrust.

Dragons, Sluts, and Spaceships

Friday night’s session went well. We all had more fun, I think, since I adjusted the rules. Shauna wasn’t up to playing due to a rough week at work, so her character, Aydan, stayed at the tavern while the rest of the party ventured back to the silver mines. All-in-all, the players kicked some ass. The rules are a bit more balanced now that I’ve adjusted the encumbrance limits, the encounter possibility frequency between Silverton and the mines, and the fact that I added a magic shop in town. This allowed them to buy some healing items that would otherwise have made it really difficult to go back into the mines without a healer.

Saturday night Shauna and I both enjoyed several red-headed sluts.

I met with Millard Monday and we went over the remaining tasks for the DVD feature. I was able to put together a CD with some low res videos and stills and game him a copy of Premiere so he could do some rough editing on his won, then send it to me for tweaking.

Tonight we’re going to watch the Battlestar Galactica mini-series.

Sick Thought of the Day: Crush the finger till the tip splits and the red and white puss comes out.