Silver Linings

After a fairly (by  my standards) strong start, my blogging has gotten a little labored;  let me just start writing and see what I can come up with.

Ever have one of those days where nothing seems to go right.

Yesterday was one of those days.

A simple cavity fill turned out to be an implant

An oil change turned into a $600 brake job.

The dryer delivery was a bust because I ordered an electric dryer when I actually needed a gas dryer.

The other sucko thin about the whole day was the aftermath of a fairly painful cavity filling, (which as already mentioned didnt work) which left me cranky and tired feeling.

But I have to focus on the positive thing as well.

I have more in the bank account than I have since I got separated,
Krissy came out last night and she and the kids really seem to be getting along great.  Plus we won at trivia.
I was able to get the rather nasty smelling living room carpet (thanks Jenny) cleaned the same  day.
It's Friday and I might actually get to see Penn State play.

Thats it for now.

I think I finally get Reality TV

When the whole reality tv things reared its ugly head I wound up being (at least I felt like) I was the only person on the world who didn't get what the heck the attraction was.

People surviving on dessert islands, trying to lose weight, singing on tv,  dating.  It just kind of left me wondering Huh?

But that was until I started watching hoarders. 

Hoarders for anyone who hasnt seen it yet,  Is basically the pornography of the home improvement set.  It features people who are messy, (very very messy).  food that is years out of date, dead cats, animal feces.  Child Protective Services.


Bery very messy.

Now I am a fan of home improvement shows,  I have been for years.  But my big complaint was always why do they have to focus on the people,  cant they just show how to replace that sink?

But with hoarders,  I am fascinated by the interactions.  Mostly between the hoarders and their equally damaged enabling spouses, children, and other significant others. 

You see I was married to one of these nuts for a long time.  She wasn't a hoarder in the way these guys are, but her attitude was the same, the narcissm,  the my way or the highway attitude,  the pulling out all of the emotional stops to get their way.

I see these power struggles of my marriage played out once a week. 

But I dont think the whole thing is masochistic,  in an odd sort of way, I think its empowering.  I experience those feelings of anger, of frustration, and them I can sort of sit back and say to myself that I have overcomed that, I have moved on.  I have conquered that problem.

So that I think is the fascination of reality tv,  it gives a chance to relive our emotional memories.  To feel things that we haven't felt before.

How well do I accept my own aging?

Ten minutes to craft a response.

Age is something that creeps up on you.  For a long time, I have waited for some sort of great epiphany to come as I have gotten older, to know that somehow I am wiser, smarter, more mature.

The sad thing is that I am not.  The one thing that I am convinced of, more and more is that we are who we are,  and even though we add (and lose)  lbs, change haircuts, clothes, cars and careers, we remain who we essentially are.

I remember the births off all of my children,  and the thing that still strikes me the most is that from the second they were born you could already see a glimpse of the person they were going to be some day,  Alex was shy and introspective,  Maddie was unyielding and tough, and Mora was Bright and Sunny.  I didn't fully realize it at the time, but it was there.

The other thing is that sometimes I dont think that time really passes for me.  Every time the weather starts turning cool in fall my mind plays a trick on me and tells me its time to pack up the car and head to Penn State for Fall semester,  even though my freshmen year was almost 30 years ago.  I go into my parents house for Thanksgiving and everyone turns back into parents and children, even though my brother and sisters have families of their own.

So I guess, I dont really feel aging, as a sense of loss, I just feel the sense of grand pageantry as our life experience grows richer and richer.

Artisanal = Something made by someone with a college degree when all you need is a high school degree

Words are interesting to me,  I look at at then and wonder..... how the heck did that word come to be.

More often than not, I also wonder who is making a buck off this and how do I get a piece of the action.

One example which has been getting into my craw of late is the word artisanal.

Now I haven't looked it up,  (so I will probably get myself into trouble righ quick) but artisanal means something like made by artisans.  The only problem with this is where the heck does the whole al suffix come into play.  If bread is made by a baker,  you dont say bakeral bread.  you just say baked bread (or more simply bread.

This seems to just be the latest dopey word that some joker on Madison Ave has created to justify craploads more for buying something.  I do notice that things that are artisanal have a few distinct characteristics:

First are foremost,  things that are artisinal have be sort of  asymetrical and lumpy looking,  so do they have some sort of asymetrical or lumpy pots to achieve this effect,  second, they have to have some sort of sign that human hands touched it.  Sometimes making it sort of lumpy fits the bill, other times they have to make some sort of little cut marks in it.  Thirdly it has to be sort of funny looking and have some sort of detritus of the cooking process stufk on it, like the flower in the above picture.

Now I was going to post a whole long rant on how artisinal was a dopey word, but then I realized that the adjectival form of my own profession is actuarial,  come to think of it, adjectival  has the whole al thing working on the end as well.

Cant we just go with Yummo as an descriptive. 

Got a few minutes, thought I would blog

Yet another 10 minute bloggin exercise,  Lets see how I do.  The new name of this blog is Caveat Lector which approximately translates to reader beware or reader be careful, there is something tricky coming down the pike.  I think the latter definition applies more than the former.

Took Krissy out for her birthday and we had an awesome time.  The restaurant was a place called Minetta's Tavern,  It was on MacDougall Street which was just off Sixth Avenue.  I will leave a description of the food for Krissy who does a much better job of it than I do anyway, but what really struck me was the whole MacDougall St milieu,  It reminded a lot of some of the streets in Philadelphia, it was narrow with a lot of tall brick rowhouses on either side of the street and lined with a lot of old restaurants that seemed to have been there for like a hundred years.  I guess as Krissy said little Itlay is long tone, but this had the feel of some sort of fortoeen outpost.

Cheetos for Dinner

In keeping with the fact that it's Krissy's birthday today, I am making some resolutions.

Not making any sense, just work with me here.

1.  I resolve that I will not play spider solitaire nearly as much as I do now.  that means no more playing at home, ever.  I just have way too much to do, and too many people that I would rather spend time with.  I have to admit its seductive with the movement of the cards and the final big finish.  Its like your doing some sort of precise tidy, where the end result is perfection.

But the end result is that you feel bleary eyed and unsatisfied, just like eating cheetos for dinner.

Begone I say to you.

The second thing is that I resolve that I will never bring my Ipad to bed with me.  (alright stop snickering).  The reason is the same reason that I will never have a tv set in there, it keeps me from the valuable business of sleeping. 

Now dont get me wrong I love my Ipad,  But do I really need to watch all of season I of Dead Like Me at 1:00 AM on a work night,  apparently on Tuesday, I thought so. 

Having said that, it was actually pretty interesting.  It sort of reminded me of a lot of the HBO comedy series, portraying normal people is sort of strange situations, to sort of create a way of discussing normal situation.  Surprising it only got cancelled after seasons,  but probably good for me from a sleep perspective.

Well that's it (for now)  Its Krissy's birthday tontie and I am going to take her to someplace called Minetta's Tavern.  When I was a kid I worked at a place called Bonanza, which was next door to a place called Minella's Main Line Diner.  Awesome place;  sadly the Bonanza couldn't hold a candle to it.  I still remember those polyester shirts we wear,   That thing was so synthetic, it was like wearing latex.  I'll bed some acne nosed teen is still wearing out there somewhere.

See Ya

Just a random post

This is a post I took at Tourne Park in Boonton NJ. As always taken with my trusty Crackberry as opposed to a regular phone, I still like the picture though.

Ten minute blogging drill

One of the goals I have in doing this blog is to write faster and more concisely, to this end (as I have already mentioned) I am trying to keep editing to a minimum. What I am also trying to do is to keep the actual time I spend blogging to a minimum as well. Beginning to end this posting will be written for about ten minutes, then submitted as is.

Today, is the last day of an extended honeymoon, not with my girlfriend, that honeymoon goes on ;-). Rather it is the end of my current honeymoon with food,

Last year, after the end of a bad and somewhat toxic relationship, I finally started getting my health life back to a point where I wanted it to be, I lost about 30lbs and started excercising gradually and felt like I might actually get to where I wanted to be which was with my weight somewhere around where it was when I graduated college (about 240).

But with summer love came summer eating styles, too much tv watching, too many carbs, my new job has created a few challenges for exercising, though truth be told NYC is an exciting place just to walk around and look at the buildings.

Too make a long story short, I probably picked up about 15 of the 30 lbs that I lost in the last few months, much of it in the last six weeks when I just sort of let the bottom drop out food wise.

Today however, is going to be the end of the party (or depending on how you think of it the beginning of the party) Krissy and I are going out in some sort of fancy schmancy restaurant in the city, then she and I are both going back on the wagon.

So what is going to happen

1. Try to get 40 minutes to an hour of excercise every day, (even if it is just walking) Maybe get back on the Nordic Trak.

2. Knock off all of the carbs. This is really the hardest one for me, Its also what works. Adieu Pretiola ;-(

3. Get back to taking vitamins every day. This just seems to ennervate me.


4. Get one of those lamps that keeps away Seasonal Affective Disorder (alluded to in my last post).



Thats about it for now, I completed this post with one minute to go (yeah me)

I'm Solar Powered

Back when I was in college, there was someone on my dorm floor named Dave, (his last name escapes me at the moment. He was an art major and hence prone to flights of fancy much more than I was as a physics/EE major.

One evening when we were coming out of Findlay common after dinner, it was a beautiful sunset as we looked out over the intramural fields at Penn State. He sighed and commented to me that "If I were solar powered I would fly up to those clouds".

Now being the rationalist that I was then (and still am now, though currently less so), my reaction was, "What does being solar powered have to do with flying".

With the passage of time, though his words have come back to haunt me, as now even though I can't fly, I am unmistakably solar powered.

I know this because as the days begin their slow but steady ebb and even though winter is still months away, I am feeling the slow departure of the sun start to make me ache inside. Still in a low quiet way, but unmistakably there none the less.

I notice it now that I am waking up in the morning and the sun is no longer there to greet me, granted it does come up quickly enough, but I miss my friend (the sun) in the morning.

A Slow Day

I'm getting ready to wrap up work in a little while, its been a slow day, slow but good. I think I actually learned a few things. I finally learned how to start working while sitting at my desk in my home office. (with a few fits and starts)

Tonite its off to the Rockaway mall to get my girlfriend Krissy birthday present(s) I already got a few things, but its time to go sweeten the pot tonite.

And last but not leat I figures out how to add pictures to this silly blog. Heres another coming at you its straight from my vacation in PA last week.

Ma Ma Ma My Tomatoes

with respect to the knack.

I have had a garden a few times in the past few years. This year had one and absolutely kicked butt. I owe this to, lots and lots of landscape fabric with kept the massive amounts of weeds at bay. probably lots and lots of heat this summer (I wouldn't be surprised if 2010 goes down as one of the hottest summers ever) plus a helpful gardener in the plot next door, who was always there to water my plants even if I wasn't

Here is the fruits of my labors. This was what was here for me when I returned from the mountains in PA last Sunday. Though there were a few greenies from the prior week which just turned red.