I’m posting this from my phone so if you don’t see a speedometer pic its showing 150,000 miles. Yes I bought the car used, 32k miles on it.
In 2007:). In a little under three years I’ve put on almost 120k miles. Wow, I need a pilots license to get to work. Crazy stuff dude. If you figure I drive 86 miles each way to work, 120k in 3 yrs isn’t that crazy.
Watching the Red Sox Rays game and I gotta say, the Sox don’t look great, but in truth, the Rays don’t either! We’re 5.5 out so tonight a win is crucial for us. Yeah, I’m a Sox fan 
Getting a whole bunch in this week work-wise. This is the week to get everything together before the contractors come in, so it’s going to be busy busy. Putting together a lot of spreadsheets and charts and excel sheets. We’ll see what happens.
How am I? I’m busy, I’m tired, and a little sore. Gave platelets today so I’m hoping that’ll help someone out. Really want to try to work out a bit this week, my back is sore and I’m feeling kinda old:)
Anyway, that’s what’s up with me.
Stat from game -45 different players used by the Sox this season, holy crap. Yeah, our season is over.
Wow, it’s been a while since I have written much. The gluten free post was mostly just to give my wife somewhere to point a bunch of people interested in getting their child fed properly at school.
So what’s up with me?
Elbow - it’s sore in a different place, so the doctor wants me to go do some physical therapy. All in all it’s feeling better, but I have tightness in other places which causes pain in some cases.
Kids - Fae’s parents bought Aidan a bass guitar and amp. I used to play way back when, so I’m showing him some stuff I Remember, but he’s following a beginning book pretty well. Nice thing about 3 years of Baritone, he knows how to read music, and in bass clef Gillian is leaving for camp today for the week. It’s a completely gluten free camp called CampCeliac. She’s very excited to be going back for her 3rd year, and she gets to move to the cabins by the lake instead of in the woods. I’m SO excited to be driving her to Rhode Island today. It’s only 4.5 hours. ONE WAY!!! YAYAYAYAYAYYYYYY! The things we do for our kids, right? I’ll be coming back through White Plains, where I work, so I may stay with the guy who works for me. Probably because 9 hours of driving doesn’t sound like fun, so if I can shave 1.5 hours off of it, and get to watch the Red Sox Yankee game? I”m all for it.
Vacation - what is that anyway? I’ll head back up on Friday with Aidan to pick Gillian up, then drive to Lake George and stay at a campsite on Friday night. Saturday we’ll head to the cabins at Silver Bay, a YMCA run place on Lake George where my parents are renting some cabins for the whole extended family. It looks like an amazing place with lots of activities (I’m doing yoga m-w-f and tai chi t-th) to keep everyone busy. Fae’s going to be working with her Dad over the weekend on the new clothing line and going out on appointments mon and tue, and take the train to Albany on Wed where I’ll pick her up and bring her to Lake George for the rest of the week. I haven’t been waterskiing since I was in college so it’ll be interesting to see if I remember enough to teach all the cousins.
Anyway, I hope this finds you and yours well. If it weren’t for the vacation, I Think I would probably need a padded cell Work is great, I”m just burnt. Need to plan more shorter vacations instead of waiting so long in between. Oh yeah…
Baseball – The Red Sox have been deemed to be the unluckiest team this year with respect to injuries. Kevin Youklis is out for the rest of the season and they signed Carlos Delgado to platoon at first with Mike Lowell. Yeah, it’s bad.
Sitting in the Continental presidents club with Fae, getting ready to get on the flight to NOLA(new orleans louisiana).
Can’t wait to get there:)
So I’m going to Nawlins starting on the 6th and I’m pretty excited. The Microsoft BI Conference is in New Orleans this year, and we decided to spend the frequent flyer miles for a ticket for Fae so we can hang out, kidless, for a week in NO. I lived in Houston for 5 years, Fae for 10, and neither of us has been there. Go figure.
So, for all of you out there, has anyone been there? Need suggestions of things to do and places to go.
Well this person is getting this and I’m not.
This person is doing the wrong thing and I’m not going to say anything because I don’t want to get into that mess.
She’s paying more attention to him than to me.
I want what he has.
I have a really bad tendency. It’s the tendency to do things cyclically (i think I spelled it right but it doesn’t look it) and spiral down into poor me, everyone is planning/plotting against/excluding me. I have a bad tendency to be jealous, to project my thoughts into situations – sometimes without knowing what is really up, and just grind my own psyche into the dirt.
It’s all related to my physical well being. My elbow has been hurting for the last 15 months or so, and I have to get cortisone shots every three months. It’s keeping me back from really letting loose with any exercise because I’m always wary of hurting it and needing another shot. So I haven’t been doing Kendo much, and now that we aren’t going anymore, I’m worrying about what will fill the gap. So I take two oreos and worry about it a few hours later when I have a can of coke and a butterfinger. Which makes me feel fat, which depresses me, which puts me in a bad mood, which makes me think that everything is being done to screw me.
It keeps me down for periods of time now, depression, anger, frustration, worthlessness. It’s ultimately all tied to one thing – did I go and “get my rah rah’s out” as my sister puts it. Did I find some physical release for my energy, some way to channel some of that nervousness and frustration into some other task. I’ve always felt better when I’m doing martial arts, but we’re kinda tight right now so not having to pay for Kendo is actually a pretty good thing. The issue is, how do I start working out by myself, and continue it? How do I get off my ass and go outside and practice the kicks and punches and blocks for any period of time without someone to do it with? Sure, I could ask Aidan, but at the same time, I want to be the student, the kid, the one who’s being given direction and goals and things to shoot for by someone else.
I’m a follower who’s trying to become a leader and sometimes I just don’t know how to start. But maybe that’s the crux of the issue. Maybe it isn’t that I haven’t found the right person to show me how, but that I shouldn’t be looking for someone to show me, I have to become that person. I’ve got a lot going on at work, some big projects that we’re about to kick off, and I have to tell you, it’s scaring me and at the same time, I’m really excited. I’m not afraid that I can’t do it, or that I think it’ll be a disaster. I have enough confidence in myself that I know when it comes down to it, I’ll always get the job done. I have already done so in the past, but it’s so foreign to me in a way, so against my nature. Not necessarily against my nature, but DEFINITELY outside my comfort zone, my little safe box. I think it’s always easier to follow than to lead, but the things I want to discover about myself and really TRY are ALL outside my box.
As a type B personality….but as I type that, I’m not even sure that’s true. I think that I have been hiding behind that – that I am a follower, a calm representative of a team waiting for instructions, someone who feels better when I’m told rather than just doing, or telling someone else.
Am I more comfortable there tho, is that the root of my frustration? I know I make good decisions at work, that’s the interesting part – my type-B follower mentality is virtually gone at work, and has been for some time. Have I already made the necessary changes and I’m just sitting here whining about something that really isn’t an issue, except in my own head because I’m feeling depressed and fat?
Fuck this. I’m going to get my weapons and go outside and work out.
update: 2:16pm
meditated outside for about 10 min
warmups – stretching, jumping jacks, etc
10x front, side, round kicks
2 katas(forms)
all of my weapons techniques which took a while
and I decided that I would run to really work up a sweat –
1.5 miles, half walk, half run. Feeling like I can’t breathe right now, but I emotionally/mentally feel a lot better.
It’s 10:30, Gillian has been in bed for almost two hours and she’s awake complaining about the heat. We’d been out all day and so I figured the AC was just catching up and it’d be cool fairly soon. She and Aidan were lying in bed with no sheets or blankets, sweltering. I fell asleep a little while later with visions of having to pay 5k for a new AC/heating unit dancing in my head. Not the stuff dreams are made of.
Fast forward to 1am. Fae wakes me up by fruitlessly searching for the remote because she can’t sleep either and I’m sweating. WTF? I go downstairs to check the temp and it says 71, and it’s quite comfortable downstairs. I get a drink and head back upstairs and with each step, I’m feeling a degree of heat go up. Okay, what the hell? I feel the register that’s right near the stairs, very little coming out. I feel the one downstairs right at the bottom, plenty.
Great, the AC isn’t pushing out enough to get upstairs. New AC….wait a sec.
If your unit is set up anything like mine, we have these big long rectangular boxes in the attic with plastic ‘sleeves’ coming out of the sides to bring the ac/heat to the bedroom registers. Problem is, you’re not supposed to pile anything on top of the boxes, even tho they’re really sturdy. Oops.
I thought about that the other day, so I pull out the ladder, climb up, push the trapdoor up, and I’m blasted by cold air. Ah, the attic is nice and chilly. Shit! The box nearest me is more of a rhombus than a box and where the segments come together the tape has separated and cold air is blasting out. DUCT TAPE TO THE RESCUE!!! YAY!!! I taped the hell out of it after pushing it back into the shape it’s supposed to be in. Went down, felt the registers in the kids room. Hmm, definitely more, but still not much.
Scramble back up the ladder, yeah, it’s about 1:40am at this point, and I took a better look. The one end had some stuff on it – just a box, some books, a tv, and like 3 sleds – not much 
Moved all of that to a chorus of Fae saying “You okay” and “What are you doing” and snores. Moved it all out of the way and reached behind the end.
There was a hole the size of a football there the end had collapsed and air was rushing out of it. To the point that there was condensation on the end! Pushed everything back into place, twisted myself up like a pretzel so I could reach, and used about half the roll of duct tape. Big roll too Felt all around, didn’t feel any cold air. Checked the sleeves, they’re all cool, in fact one is kind of inflated so I take that as a good sign.
I climbed down and went to check the registers – Aidan’s rolled up in his sheets and blankets shivering. Felt the register, full blast baby, OH YEAH!!!!
So I put the AC to 70 instead of 65, turned the fans on ‘ON’ instead of auto so they’d cycle the air around and crashed for 4 hours before waking up to go to work.
What a pain in the ass, but you know what? I FIXED IT! ME! I figured out the problem and did something about it. Forgetting of course that I’m the idiot that put all that stuff on the end and made the hole, but at least I fixed it Sitting in my nice comfortable living room right now YAY ME!
The big question is, what is my electric bill going to look like this month now that ac/heat isn’t blasting out into my attic. Oye kinda looking forward to seeing it.
Sleep in late, CHECK!
We went to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden (again, why isn’t it Botanical?) yesterday for Sakura Matsuri 2010 with our friends yesterday, very cool indeed but WAY too crowded. We walked around all day and saw demonstrations and met people and stared at people in strange costumes It was fun, but was a long day. My hips and ankles are killing me today, but it really made me think about what kind of shape I’m in and what I want to do about it. Not only that, but what is important to me and what I want to do with my life. We got in after running around all day, so we were all exhausted and everyone fell asleep really quickly, except me. Still got 8.5 hours of sleep which for me, is amazing.
So what am I going to do today? Aidan called his friends to see if they wanted to play D&D today, but he’s sick and a bunch of them can’t make it, so that’s scratched for the day. Can’t say I’m totally disappointed, but it would have been fun. It’s beautiful outside and my elbow isn’t screaming at me, I might go out and do some kicks and punches. Seeing the students at …okay now this is just freakin creepy.
There was a demonstration by students from a karate school in NYC called Seido. I wanted to link it here, and when I went to the page, in big print is the opening of the newest branch – in Elmsford NY – 10 min from where I work. I can’t afford it right now, but that’s weird. I was impressed by the discipline and focus of the students and wanted to smack two or three wise-asses in the crowd for making stupid comments during the demo, but I was taken in by how they held themselves.
No, I’m not going to run out and join Seido Karate today, tho a large part of me wants to. What I’m going to do today is make pancakes for my daughter because she just woke up and is expecting them. Here she comes and is smiling at me saying “What?” from the stairs as she collapses on the couch.
Have a great day y’all. I’ll try and post what I get done today.
Today is the day I’m going to stop fooling myself about my story. It’s not going to get written by itself.
Today is the day I’m going to start meditating on a regular basis so I can get my head in the right place.
Today is the day I’m going to begin eating right and exercising on a regular basis.
This is it. And I wanted to write it down so I can guilt myself into a habit and continue the habit because I’m 41, feeling old and feeble, and I’m done waiting for someone else to do it for me.
Yeah, I’m good at that. I put off what I can as long as I can and hope that someone else will do it or it’ll magically resolve itself. That’s why I began just writing the other day and have done so almost every day, even if it’s just “All work and no play makes jack a dull boy” – can you name the movie?
We went to the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens (why it’s not botanical, I don’t understand) with our friends and had a really nice time walking around and seeing the workshops and demonstrations. The Seido Karate demo and the Tea Pouring ceremony were my highlights. It was a japanese festival for the 100th anniversary of the gardens, and I’d really like to go back some day when there aren’t thousands of people because it’s a really pretty place. I’d really like to see it in early spring for the Cherry Blossoms blooming, I think we’re going to plan for next year.
Hope this finds everyone healthy and well.
So I’ve been pretty busy lately, doing research for things at work, kids stuff, generally taking it easy and re-reading several series. I’ve also been doing a lot of work on my genealogy on ancestry.com and generally messing things up more than not It’s hard getting people straight.
I’ve got several websites I’m working on, one of which should be a big one that I’m doing with my friend Charl who has forgotten more about design, color and page layout than I will ever understand. I do all the techie crap under the hood that sends him into a corner screaming for mommy, so I think it’ll be a good mix. I’ll keep ya posted.
My father in law called at around 11:30 on Saturday night to ask a favor. Before I go on, you have to understand how seldom he asks for help. He was having some pain in his groin and it was enough to make him want to go to the hospital. My mother in law can’t drive after dark, and he couldn’t take himself, so I was over there in 2 minutes flat. Yeah, Fae and I were having a romantic time and conversation, but to say I would do just about anything for this man is putting it mildly. That includes dropping my wife to get him to a hospital
Stayed until around 2, they wanted to give him something to make catscans show up better, so he called me and told me to split that it was going to take several hours to even take the test and when all was said and done, my mother in law could pick him up early in the morning so I went home to crash.
If you can spare a prayer, some energy, good thoughts for him, he’s in a lot of pain. The docs think it’s his back, that a nerve may be pinched and some issues with his lymph nodes, I don’t know. They’re not super worried, but they knocked his ass out. Went over there after kendo tonight and he was out cold, which is good because he’s to the point he’s got to use a urinal and sleep in a recliner he’s hurting so badly.
I just want to go on record as saying I don’t want to get old, even tho 72 isn’t that old. Still. Getting old sucks.
I’m going to go eat some ginger snaps and read my book.
Oh yeah, got another cortisone shot and the doc wants to get an MRI of my elbow to see what we can do next. It’ll either be a PRP treatment or surgery. PRP is just taking my blood, spinning it to separate things, and injecting the healing factors right into the sore spot. Not my idea of a good time, no sir.
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