I haven't really been blogging in about 3 years now, i keep thinking i should come back, mostly to vent my frustrations.  But then i think that is a horrible idea.  So i just keep them to myself.  I don't know how to post about anything right now and not be all negative all the time.

I have lived in DC for nearly 3 years and have made exactly zero friends since moving here.  You could ask yourself why, or you may not, I don't know. but i do know, I hate everything about this city, EVERYTHING.  I hate the people i meet that like it here. I hate that i am here, I hate the traffic, I hate the pretentiousness.  If i had to make a list the states i want to live in.  Here it is

1.  Colorado

2 thru 50  everywhere else.

Only i don't get to live there likely ever again.  So I live here, and go through my days, thinking to myself god this city sucks.

Also I don't actually live in DC I am in side the beltway but in virginia and it sucks

life

So Tuesday, I am headed to St. Louis for my wife's grandmother's funeral.

Which is kinda sad. On the plus side, she did live into her nineties, was married more than 70 years, and raised 5 kids (that is crazy), I think 4 went to college, and maybe 5, the one I am unsure about was a police officer, he has retired.

All and all, she had a long, as far as I know healthy life.  But the point of this is she was we'll say 90 to make the math easier, she was born 1925.

She was like 5 at the beginning of the great depression, she saw world war II, she saw the civil rights movement, man land on the moon, the civil rights movement, well, this list could get really really long.

I never really talked to her much, as well, I only met her 4 times I think, and she talk much, I just hope that I can live up the  example she set.

Holy Cow

Blogging consistently is hard.  You skip one day and then another, then you don't think about it for a few days then you realize it has been like 3 weeks.

but never-mind that.

So it turns out, DC is hot this winter so far has been nearly balmy.   It is weird.   The first year i moved out here, we got line 9 snow days, like 5 before Christmas.

So now it is just about Christmas,  I am kinda excited and kinda saddened by it.  My daughter is starting to figure out Santa isnt' real, but hasn't gotten there yet, she is super excited to have him bring her stuff.

It is likely the last time this going to happen, so it is bitter sweet. But well it is exciting.

Weight Wait

So last Sunday i weighted in at 216.5 This Saturday 215.1.  Not great for a week not horrible.

Other Stuff

Today we're going to a cut your own tree farm.

I keep thinking it is nearly shameful we're going out to cut down trees to throw them away, on the other hand,   This "farm" land in the DC area has not been developmed in part cuz they get money from me cutting down a tree to throw it away, still i dont get it entirely. But it sounds fun

I'm a lumberjack and I'm OK!

get in shape

It is the perpetual struggle I have get into shape.  A bout 18 months ago, I should have been blogging then, I tore the Peroneal Tendon, and the ATFL ( I think ligament) and some other ligament too, but I forget the other one cuz that one isn't causing my foot to tingle all the time.

So since that happened I weighed somewhere around 185 lbs.   Fast forward 18 months and I am something like 215.  I plan to weigh in the morning.  But that is a good guess.  One might wonder holy shite how does that happen.

Well, it is because of lots of things but mostly bad choices.

So anyway, going to begin my new years make over on thanksgiving week, and celebrate and be thankful that I can do that.

2015

As this is my second post this year, which is 2 more then all of 2014, i am making it a goal to get into the habit or regularly posting, I am going to shot for once a week, but that seems like a tall order :-)

Lets see this year I am trying to end the year with a bang, trying to start exercising and trying to read. while being a good parent and all that sort of stuff

But lets focus on teh reading.

Here is a list of Books I have tried to read this year.

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/bitter-greens-kate-forsyth/1113986002?ean=9781250070845

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/its-kind-of-a-funny-story-ned-vizzini/1100328474?ean=9780786851973

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-life-we-bury-allen-eskens/1118601600?ean=9781616149987

Red Dwarf: Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers (Red Dwarf, #1)

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13262783-every-day

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6665671-please-ignore-vera-dietz

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11737387-fated

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29044.The_Secret_History

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17910048-the-goblin-emperor

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/21418013-lock-in

 So it turns out blogging is hard, i don't remember how to insert a link right to have the book pop up like red dwarf.

You live you learn, you forget and you relearn :-)

holy smokes, that was a 2 year hiatus

so i am minding my own business, not blogging intentionally for a minute, then i got better and lo and behold, i got out of the habit, so 2 years later i come back.

So this is what brings me back, I need a new hobby/experiance, i am not sure what to do.

I am thinking tennis, but does anyone take up tennis at 42?

I am searching for something new to try anyway.

if someone happens accross this and things, you know you should try X.  Let me know.

Surfing is out. Besides surfing i got nothing

Moving

So keep thinking, I need to write, but I am getting all emotional about stuff, I didn't think was going to be all emotional.  This keeping your emotions in check stuff is hard work.

Anyway, I am leaving Colorado, in a few days, to live in a place well below Denver is terms of everything except my family live there.

So there is a website called findyourspot.com which asks some questions then makes a list of places you should live.

Albuquerque, NM
Corvallis, OR
Eugene, OR
Medford, OR
Portland, OR
Salem, OR

That is my top 5,  I know what you're thinking, that is a lot of Oregon. Well that is what i was thinking, I have no idea why it thinks i should move to Oregon.  But in the what does this thing know, I have lived in Albuquerque, I didn't much care for it.

The next page was

Denver, CO
Hartford, CT
Carson City, NV
Reno, NV
Santa Fe, NM
Bend, OR

Denver number 6, and i like it here, i worked in santa fe when i lived in albuquerque, i didn't much care for it
and more Oregon.

Fort Collins, CO
Worcester, MA
Las Vegas, NV
Providence, RI
Provo-Orem, UT
Seattle, WA

I have lived in near Provo and Orem, and chances are that is the city i would chose to live in last!  Like seriously i think i would prefer moosejaw, Manitoba.

Colorado Springs, CO
New Haven, CT
Boise, ID
Missoula, MT
Ogden, UT
Salt Lake, UT

WTF is with all the UT, i mean i have lived there longer than i have lived anywhere else, but i don't want to go back.

So maybe that is what i should take from this list, that seems to think i should live in Oregon, I should move somewhere off the list, since, It messed up the Utah and New Mexico so badly.  So there you have it, I am going to get all excited about moving to the greater DC area, because, well, that is where i am moving.

running

So i ran sunday, a 5k, and I ran today, 3.0 miles, i was going to do 5k, but I got a phone call, anyway.  When i say run I mean mostly run.  I did really good at running at first, made it 16 minutes of running to start, but then I got to a hill that seems so well unnoticeable while i am driving.  But i walked only for a bit, then i ran, after that I ran 4 minutes walked 1 minute

My legs feel like Jell-O.  So I got that going for me, which I also explains why i am up at 3am.  Well not really, but I am up cause my leg cramped while i was sleeping, and well, that hurts and now i am not tired.

That isn't true, now i am worried about it cramping again, if i go back to sleep, so i am up trying water, which i don't feel like, but I have heard that is the best thing for cramps, and a lot of other stuff.

Speaking of water, and no idea if this is related to my weight loss or merely coincidence, but I also quit partaking diet soda in either Feb or March.  One day the day i quit, I sorta took inventory, I was 4 liters into the day, and it wasn't a remarkable day by any means.  So I said, to myself, self, that is just gross.

So my short term goal (end of August is to get to 179 lbs, at least dabble with it, this is also my weight loss tale.  I weigh in each morning I had daily data from January, but when my old cell phone me its ultimate end I lost all that.  So now i have daily data from July, but still shows the same crap over a short period it doesn't start out at 201.

but here is what i learned, my weight fluctuates alot within a day  don't go as high as before and the lows keep getting lower.

so sunday i weighted in at 183.5, yesterday (monday) 184.5.  I feel like this morning will be slightly higher, but by like between now and next sunday I should hit 183 at least once.

 Anyway, at work a guy keeps asking me how much weight you want to lose?  I don't know that, it turns out i have never been a healthy weight.  I was 130 pretty much till 24 or so, then shot to 180 or so in like a year.  I weighted in roughly the same for the next 15 years.  A couple times I lost a bit of weight, but i never got into the 160 or hit the 200 (well till this year).

So the BMI scale says I should weight around 155, but seems slight.   who knows
  

update

it has been a long time since i posted february to be exact.  And well there is a reason for that.  However, I will not get into it here,  some personal things should be kept off the internet.  That statement is like more true then i will admit, but i know when there are things that should be kept private on the off chance someone found them that i would prefer not too.

So my last post on Wheat Belly, giving up wheat is hard, and i didn't do it very well, now i just try to not eat it in the morning or at lunch. 

On the plus side, i weighted in at 201 in January, I am now at 184.  So i got that going for me.

Yesterday, I did the color run in denver, at the start of the race i was standing next to a guy that is going through ABC extreme Weight Loss.  The dude trainer was standing next to him, there is a better than fair chance, that while they're asking him about his first 5k with a cam corder, i was staring at the guys pecs, thinking Dude is ripped, i didn't know who he was.

So i ran the race, which was a fun run/and a lot of folks walking in 37:03, which is pretty am going to try to become friends with my old blog again.

wheatbelly

As it turns out I have become quite a tubby lubber, but I am working on it perpetually.

I have been running a lot, and for the first time in a long time I can run 2 miles without stopping, not fast, but running, so yea me.

Anyway, I was looking on line and came across a book called wheat belly.  And read the first 50 pages or so, and 1. bio engineered food is creepy, 2. wheat sucks.

Anyway, so I thought, what the hell I'll go wheatless see what happens, hoping to shed some lbs.

I have only been wheat free for 2 days so I would hardly call this demonstratively proving wheat sucks, but you have no idea how elated I am.

Why you ask.  Cause I am not tired.  For years, since at least 2003 I have been on Ritalin, and Percocet, one to keep me awake and one to keep me asleep, because I showed the symptoms of nacrcolypsy.  Well most of them, they wouldn't actually call it that. 

And even without the wheat, I can still go into REM in less than 2 minutes (actually, quicker than that, but no one believes me when I tell them I can go to sleep pretty much at will).

Anyway, for the first time in as long as I can remember, I have gone 2 days without falling/needing to go to sleep in the afternoon.

Like I said, it has only been 2 days, but they are awesome days.  I just hope they keep coming.  This book talks a lot about antidotal evidence about wheat curing all kinds of ailments.   If something is chronic and wrong and meds don't help, consider going wheat free for a few days, see what happens.

my thoughts on stuff

I watched that movie Ted the other day, and found it an odd mixture of stupidly profane and still manage to remain somewhat touching.  However in the previews there was one whose title i don't remember now, and it said,  "from the film makers that brought you Resident Evil.”  Does this make anyone want to see the movie?

There is so much stuff swirling through my head right now, and well, a great deal of it stems from my naivety. People suck.  That is what i am learning more and more of, and well I don't want to learn it, maybe it is having a job where the only people you deal with are either good at cheating or bad at complying.

Maybe it is just the news,  I don't what it is, but that is my conclusion.

I mean, sorta, I guess, I didn't know the degree to which the same person can be great in one aspect of life and just plain shitty in another.

Oh the plus side, I am glad I got over that.

Next and this is just my brief political take for a minute, but given all the gun control talk of late, and all the folks claiming it is in the second amendment they can own guns, I would like just one person to show where it says that?

That is all for that.

The superbowl is next week, I kinda don't even want to watch.

I went skiing at Loveland today, that was fun, I needed to get out.

new year

I realize that I missed the new year, but nevermind that.  I was dealing with some stuff personally that I didn't want seeping onto the internet.

But I am feeling much better now, so I am back.

I just turned 40, If you had told me when i was 20 that at 40, I would still have every little of anything figure out, well, I would have said that sucks.

It does suck but you know, It is also a good thing, who wants to have all the stuff figured out. I mean if you can answer the question who am I, that kinda means it has been answered. 

I would prefer that answer to remain elusive and ever changing.  Like I one day would like to be able to say I am a musucian, this year, I am going to run a 1/2 marathon.  That is my goal. 

I am a Coloradan right now, but by the end of the year, I hope to be a Virginian,  and well.  That is all. I have, oh also, My calvese hurt, if anyone is reading this that is either young and in shape, I tell you this much, getting back into shape is a BITCH. 

Don't get out of shape i the first place.

That is all.

reading

Recently my posts have been about reading, and I have been trying to find a weird balance between boxes I should have read, but that are hard reading, ie moby dick, and books that are fun to read without being trash.

Anyway, I recently signed up for Goodreads.com and I put in the books in my nook that I have read since i got it.  I have read way more than I though, which is good.  I mean, I am not reading like a book a week or anything, but I am reading about a book a month, which i say is a fairly good clip.

I may have commented on this book already, not sure, but i know i posted I was reading Heart Shaped Box by Joe Hill.  This book is weird to me.  The whole time i was reading, I was compelled to keep reading it seemed like a good story.  The entire time i read I was thinking this is turning out to be a nice read.

Then i finished it, and in hindsight, the book is I don't know how to phrase it, almost.  It is almost great.  It is almost moving, it is almost scary, but it isn't any of those things.  It is just almost, which I think is a pretty good result from your first novel.  Readability and enjoy-ability are very high, but it is also lacking something i can't place my finger on.

Anyway, if you're looking for a great book, i can't recommend it, if you're looking for a good book to read while stuck at an airport on the wrong side of security, well for that purpose this book is great.

I also just finish, the lost heroes, dude that wrote those percy jackson stories, is wrote this one, sorta, fantasy teen lit.  I give it the same review as above, well different, if your goal is to get you kids to like reading, and they like things like harry potter and the likes, i would strongly recommend it, if your pushing 40 and just looking for some entertainment, that is a good choice too.

but neither of the books is challenging, or vocabulary expanding, or stretching,  like when i finished Catch 22, i had a list of like 40 words i looked up.  Among them is "callipygous"  which is my new favorite word, other than having no idea when i would need to use it, I like that it exists!

fantasy football and other stuff

I am in two leagues this year, and in both t/he leagues my teams have exactly one player in common, and that player is reggie bush who is not starting in either, so really no players of consequence in common.

Anyway, the season started off with a bang, as I went 2-0 in both leagues, nothing wonky there. Then it happened,  I went on two concurrent and consecutive 8 game losing streaks.  Nothing out of the ordinary there, but then it happened

at 2-8, both my teams won their "game" last week, which seems odd to me.  So now my teams are 3-8.  In case you're wondering, my teams are "The sweet potatoes" and i use a stolen picture of Mr. potato head from toy story as a logo and "Attempted Murder" and i use a picture of 2 crows as a logo.  That one makes me laugh, not entirely my idea, as I stole, but it makes me laugh.

Anyway, and completely unrelated, yesterday, I signed up for an introduction to curling class, it is 2 hours in 2 sessions.  So I gots that going for me.

Thirdly, remember when Romney said he lost the election because Obama promised people gifts, well, I am headed to DC for thanksgiving, and i think I am going to go see if I can get my gift :-D.  I have been really hoping for a new car.

Speaking of new cars, some one who i think is an ass hole, hit my car in the parking lot, I got in and looked and the passenger mirror is hanging from 2 wires and bent all the way forward, ARRRGH.
I had to duct tape it up, the plastic covering to the mirror was on the ground. Who does that?  Oh well, Karma be a Beotch you don't want to anger.  In hopefully related news last Sunday, I was stuck in traffic for a while, because of an accident, they had shut the highway down, and i was sitting cursing and thinking why are we stuck, set the phone down and drive and stop texting and then i thought, we've been stopped for a while, I don't want to think badly of people who are potentially dying up there, and causing me to be late. 

Anyway, i get up to the accident, and what happened as far as i can tell is some guy, had his trailer with motorcycles and an atv lose control flip and while attached to your car this is bad, it looked like his car just fell onto its side, anyway, it was on a bridge they where doing construction on so there where no shoulders, and it is hard to move a car that is not on its wheels.  Anyway, it didn't look like anyone got hurt, just messed up stuff.  I like to think it was him that hit my mirror.

ebooks

So I have been struggling with what to read, I settled on 3 books.

1. The age of miracles not sure why I got this book, It just seemed to look like a good read to me, and Barnes and Noble said it was a notable fiction of 2012 or 2011 or maybe just notable.

2. Heart-Shaped Box  This one is by a cat named Joe Hill, which is a suprizing nondescript name, well it is a horror book I think.  Nothing notable about that, but it turns out that Joe Hill's dad is Steven King.  It takes a giant serving of I am not sure what, to attempt to do what your dad does, when your dad is argueable the most successful person at somethign.  Anyway the lady at the book store said it was good, and when i looked on my nook it was cheap so i got it.

3.  The world according to Garp THis is the one i wanted, it is another book, I have meant to read for a long time, but I never got around to it.  This book is not available as an ebook. which is very frustrating.

but anyway, my search for what book to read has been solved for a little while.  with that I'll move on to something else.

Books

As I am just a few days, really hours from my Thanksgiving day, flight, I need to settle on the book I'll be reading while stuck in airports, and stuff.

This really should not be that hard, but for some reason I am struggling with finding a book that I hear the plot or review to and think, that is something I could get behind.

Which is really kinda sad, because despite all the technology, and I will in fact be reading a paperless ebook, it is the stories of books that engross and enthrall and if done right capture the reader.  

Stories that can pull you into them so that reading the story isn't so much a task but a reliving of the tale.  If that makes sense,  I just read Catch 22, and this book, does that.  It points out the flaws of man and men, and also points out our hopes and dreams.  It is funny in bits and compelling overall.

A while before that I read the power of six.   Which is just a crappy teen sci-fi book, but it is fun to read, it isn't world changing, it is not meant to me.

Also before that I read a book called "The Middle Damned" which was written by a high school/college chum.  Actually it is written by a guy that i respect more than nearly everyone else I've ever met.  If you happen across this and like sci-fi, i would recommend it. But again not because it is life altering or anything, in parts his vocabulary is trying, but that makes you smarter right?

That is neither here nor there, I keep thinking if I am going to read something it should be to make me smarter there is so much great stuff there, I don't want to waste time.  On the other hand discovering a great book for you own, is kinda like a treasure hunt.

Which despite it having won the Pulitzer prize, was how i felt about the amazing adventures of kavalier and clay,  I had not heard of it found it at Barnes and noble, and gave it a read, I loved it.

Oh I also read 50 shades of this just plain sucks, and thought, well 2 things, this just plain sucks, and second if this is what romance books are like, women have no business judging men for porn,  that was straight up porn, there is a line from it that say, "I want to F(*k your mouth" and then he does.

I also recently read the hunger games, I don't get it.  I read 2 books from I think John Green,  Teen books, quick reads but both of them were fun.

 So anyway, I think I have going to make a rash decision and go with, never mind that is a horrible way to pick a book, i went with "sharp object"  was about to purchase it, and thought, i should at least read a review, the protagonist is a cutter, you know a damaged person that cuts themselves, i don't why. Anyway, that doesn't seem like the light fun read, i am hoping to find to read on flights over the thanksgiving and potentially christmas holidays.

Anyway i got, i can't even remember now, and it isn't showing up on my nook, oh well maybe it will be there in the monring.

 

 

reading list

A few years back I decided as i am not good are picking books to read, I would do something foolish and read all the pulizter prize winners for fiction.

I read these one

2003 Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides(Farrar)

2002 Empire Falls by Richard Russo(Alfred A. Knopf)

2001 The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon(Random House)

1984 Ironweed by William Kennedy(Viking)

1953 The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway

 

and i really tried more than once to read

 

1918 His Family by Ernest Poole(Macmillan)

 

It was after reading these books that i decided, these books all have one thing in common, and this is dispair, where it is mostly economic as in Empire Falls ( I know the abandon kid is sad, but mostly I got that this was about the town and not about the kid)  or War (As in Amazing Adventures (side note, i actually liked this one, and red it first then thought I would read others), or wasted life, or lost love, or pride, i am not sure what iron weed was about other than some times the problems in our head are just that, i think, i don't really know, it was sad, and well sad.  These books didn't offer much in the way of that is a good story, i think i'll go exercise, or get a degree or something.

 

So a while back i came accross one of those internet meme things everyone does to make themselves feel smarter than everyone else, you know the bbc only thinks most people have read -3 of these books, but it actually seemed like a good list so here it is. Well not yet, I jsut finished Catch 22, that started slow but it ended in a Bang, that is a good book, for all that is wrong with the world, which it doesn't even sort of sugar coat, and as it is a war book lots of folks die, it has parts that literally made me laugh.  So if you're looking for a book that you where supposed to read in high school but instead just faked it while dreaming of having the courage to ask a girl out but coming up incredibly short of that, then I suggest Catch 22.

 

I was going to post the list then i thought that was incredibly long, and kinda annoying, so i skipped it, anyway, i really doubt it is really from the bbc, but it had a good mix of stuff and promted me to read catch 22.

 

For some reason in the last week 2 people have recommend the Girl with the dragon tattoo to me, but i am kinda leary, I have seen the swedish movie, and I heard that is pretty true to the story, which is a good thing, but it ruins it for a kinda thriller suspense novel, if you know the who done it bit before you read it.

 

As I currently have one person that comments, on this an I'll there assume one read, hi abby, I have taken some of your book remmends before, the short bus one,  although that was kind painful to read and really made me examine how I had treated other kids as kid.  Anyway,  I am currently seeking suggestions for books again.

 

 

 

the devil

As some know, or may not know, i am tryign to get into shape, pertetually, but I have been lunges and squats while i walk the dog.  One of dog's better qualities is they don't care if you make a fool of yourself.

Anyway, I have a pain in my backside that can only be described as fire, anyway, I sure hope I gget through this little phase and actually start to be able to do more,  I only did like 30 per leg, and not in a row.

yikes.

Christmas

My daughter is 3 and I am not sure she even understands Christmas, but she keeps asking for stuff.  Even though it is not yet thanksgiving. Also and only a slight detour, she keeps asking for stuff at her birthday too.

Anyway that inspires me to put together a list of the things I want.

Thing 1: Move to Virginia, with my daughter and wife, I miss them so much it is is painful, but this is the last a not thing on my list, and be, the last i am going to get mushy, but it is what i want most.

Thing 2: A really nice guitar http://www.larrivee.com/instruments/acoustics/60/D60.php like the one there, I nearly wet myself looking at it.

Thing 3: A pair of throw back Diadora Borg shoes, I would look sweet in a pair of those.  

Thing 4:  Without stealing an image from their website I really unexplainably like the new Nissian Xterra.  I could go for one of those, but my jeep is still pretty new, and as mention above, i hope to move to the great dc area, maybe i should get a prius.

Thing 5: lift tickets for the ski season

Thing 6: a trip to somewhere exotic and nice, like beachy but not so beachy that everyone says, oh i have done that so Jamaica out, and in it steed will be Nevis, here is a picture from Nevis of St. Kitts I think

That is all i can think of right now, but i am sure there are more i am must kinda sleepy.