Swift kick to the head…

I’ve been slacking off for a while.  Gliding through life the last couple months, not caring about a damn thing.  (Though, even when I do care, it’s so very little.)   Not going to go into what was going, just going to let it go.   Time to get back on the choo choo train of motivation.

I got to go to the 2009 Senior Tour Golf PGA championship at Crooked Stick, Ind.  I’m attributing attending this event as my turning point.   Got outside in some fresh air, and it was suprisingly nice this time of year @ only 80 degrees.   Been a while since I’ve seen the sunshine, my legs are the whitest I think I’ve ever seen.   And I payed the price with several areas of sunburn.  Curse you perfect weather.

I breifly hit 199.0 lbs before my massive slack off.  I did not stick religiously to the diet during my screw off time, but I didn’t over eat, and I kept myself in check for the most part.  I’m walking around at 205lbs.  That seems to be the “easy” plateau I’ve rested on.  If I exercised (at all) I’d probably sit below 200lbs easy.   I guess I could try to golf again…

After letting the wife cook for the last month or so, I’m convinced her taste buds were abducted by road tripping aliens drugged up on five day old tacos, used motor oil, and mothballs.   On the bright side, she stopped cooking for me.  Whew.  We also made Beef Wellington for my birthday supper, and it was very nice.  I’d love to do that for company sometime.

More soon.  Maybe.

August 3, 2009   Posted in: Diet / Health, Weight  No Comments

Totally F’n off… and a Happy Anniv.

I’m annoyed.  I’ve been hovering between 203-205 for 3 weeks now.  Most of it my own fault.  I’ve eaten like crap for the last two weeks.  All of it by choice.  Matter of fact 9 days ago I ate so much I made myself sick.  Total gorge.  Took two days for my body to recover.  I’m such an asshat sometimes.  I haven’t worked out either.  At all.

The wife and I are celebrating our 13th Wedding anniversary today.  We actually celebrated a bit early because the kids were out of the house at camp last weekend.  I took her to a nice steakhouse, and we dined on a 5 course meal with spirits.   First course was a huge loaf of bread.  I skipped it completely as I view bread as the devil on this diet.  Might be totally wrong on this, but I try to avoid it at all costs.  Second course was appetizers, crab cakes and bacon wrapped scallops.  Both of them fantastic.  I remark to the wife at this point ”I’m already full.  Don’t really need more food.”

Yeah, that didn’t stop me. 

Third course was salad.  A huge lettuce wedge with thousand island, bacon, egg, croutons, more egg….  seriously.  This salad has so much egg on it 3 chicken slaves probably laid eggs for a week to make my salad more tasty.  And it was good.  I ate about a third of it and pushed it away.

Fourth course was the steak and veggies.  A huge 32 ounce filet.  Freaking rediculous.  I ate half and felt like I was going to die.  The veggies were fried potatoes/bacon/onions, and steamed broccoli with holondaise sauce.  Taters were awesome.  Who has room for broccoli at this point?   I didn’t, but again I didn’t let that stop me. 

Now at this point I’m pretty much ready to die.  We could have fed 6 people with all the food we had.  Not a doubt in my mind about that.  But we weren’t done yet.  We had course Five!  Dessert.  The wife picked the signature chocolate fudge cake.  I imagine the cake had more calories than the rest of the meal.  And it looked stellar.  I settled on a piece of key lime pie that was slighly smaller than the state of South Dakota.   I’m sure I could have fed the 6 people that still live in the Dakota’s had they magically transported themselves to the steakhouse.  Alas they did not, and so I ate it.  Almost all of it.  God I’m an asshat.

That meal cost me $150, 3 lbs, a horrible sore stomach, and nightmares all night.  I don’t remember what was scaring me so much in the dream, but it was definately because of the full stomach sick feeling affecting my subconcious.  I was probably fighting cows walking two legs and swinging light sabers.  That’ll scare the shit out of anyone.

I’m back on the horse though, gotta shake off the crap and get back to the basics.   And nothing better to help that than fresh veggies from the garden.  It was time to harvest peas, awesomesauce.  I’ll get a picture up tonight.  Kids and I harvested about a gallon of pea pods for supper.  They were the green arrow variety, very sweet and tasty.  I planned on having pork chops with them, but the market had shark loin on sale.  Thought the kids would get a kick out of that, and they did.  So baked shark with butter/garlic, fresh peas, and I tried creaming some cauliflower.   I could have done better on the cauliflower, I’ll work on it.  The peas we just blanched in boiling water for a couple minutes and served with a touch of butter and salt.  They were very good.   So good in fact I was highly dissapointed with the yield my small raised bed garden could provide.   I need a farm.

I’m going to get a farm.  Mark my words.  Less than 5 years from now I’ll be a f’n farmer. 

I’ll update the menu spreadsheet tonight when I’m not blocked from Google Docs.  Stupid work filter.   I skipped a week meal planning.  This probably wouldn’t have been such a big deal by itself, but along side of that a brand new Sonic drive-in opened up near the house.  I think I’ve been there 5 times in two weeks.  /sigh asshat.

In other news the boy has learned how to operate the remote on the upstairs tv.  Like fully operate.  View the list of shows on the DVR, or go to the guide to find the cartoons.  Like spongebob that seems to be on 24/7.  I’ll have to start hiding the remote.

I’m rambling, and I don’t care. 

Also fuck computer games that suck me in so completely I can’t do anything else.  Gah a month of time sucked into that stupid game.  WTF…

I’m done.

June 8, 2009   Posted in: Diet / Health, Hacker's Diet, Weight  3 Comments

Weekly Summary - 5/18

Road trips, oh my.  I just got back from a fun one in California.  And by fun I mean the most stupid work trip ever.  One management team makes a big fuss that I have to be out there as soon as possible, and so I do.  Then when I show up the other management team wonders what I’m doing there, and I’m not needed yet, so just go on home.  Majorly frustrating, and a huge waste of my time.   Sitting on an airplan for 14 hours total for nothing.  That will make me REAL eager to help them when they call again.   Wow, surprisingly my calander just filled up for a while.  Quite a while…

The diet is hard to maintain on the road.  Not impossible, just hard.  When I left I weighed in at 207.5lbs.  One case of food poisoning helped flush (haha) out a return weight of 203.5lbs.   A nice 4 lb loss on a road trip.  That’s bragging rights.  I’m still on target to be below 200 by the end of this month.  The wife hasn’t been so productive, and she’s actually getting a bit upset that I’m progressing at a faster pace than her.  I need to help her get motivated, but she’s got a hunger issue that I just can’t talk her out of.   Not sure what to do about it.

The square foot garden is doing great.  I fail at taking pictures, but I’ve got lots of good looking plants.  The front garden isn’t doing near so well.  I think it’s too wet up there, and I’m pretty dissapointed.  The areas getting some direct sun seem to be doing fine, but the shade area isn’t growing crap besides weeds.  I’m going to have to investigate more.   Harvested spinach, peas are coming very soon.  Beets look good, and beans are growing very fast.  Upside down tomatoes seem pissed they are upside down as they bend to grow back up.  Looks weird.

Post some green news/links tomorrow.

May 18, 2009   Posted in: Hacker's Diet, Weight  2 Comments

Tripple G, threatening pastures everywhere…

Tripple G…  Google, goats, and greenery.  Seems Google has hired a goat farmer to trim the lawn.  Pretty sweet.  Ever think that border collie chasing them is like “One of these days I’m going to catch one, then they’ll be scared.”

Here’s an interesting concept.  Car free weekends.  Jakarta is a very congested car crazy city.   They’ve done several closures, and plan several more.  Could you not on the weekends?  I think I could.  I’d need a little bit of planning.  We normally go to the grocery and the home improvement stores on the weekend.  I could always do it during the weekday though…

Completely random sputtering news.  I suck at going to the gym.  I’ve tried for years to not sweat, and exercise causes me to sweat.  It puts me in a wierd place mentally.   I started playing games on the computer again, and it’s killing me.   My game of choice requires an investement of time.   I get so involved with it life gets put on hold, and that’s not good for anybody.  Why can’t I get addicted to doing something worthwhile?

It doesn’t help that one of my favorite local blogs to read is PQ.  She just posted about her current weight and what she’s been dealing with for months.   I don’t blame her, it sounds like she’s had it rough for a long while now.  Hopefully mentally she’s getting back in the right spot.  Is getting thin totally against my body’s natural state?  Can I relax?  Will I bounce back if I do?  I hate you food… 

Depression is a f’n mindgame.  Getting out requires a few things to go right, and nothing has lately.   I need more fucking bacon damnit.

On the brighter side (dipping a bit negative back there), garden is growing like weeds.  Errr… growing well, and I picked weeds.  Herbs have been planted… Sage, oregano, thyme, and basil.   Pole beans have sprouted, tomatoes are shooting up.   It’s looking good on that front.   I dropped enough weed and feed on the lawn to kill off the rice patties of Thailand yesterday, so the dandelions should die die die….

WTB sleep, a maid, and a wife.

May 4, 2009   Posted in: News  No Comments

Is it still news when it’s 2 weeks late?

I guess it’s old news, at least for some.   On April 20th - 24th the United Way of King County was issuing a challenge.   Eat like you were on food stamps.  A single adult gets $7 a day, and a family of 4 (like mine) lives on $22 a day.   At first glace I was thinking this would be hard…  We’ll, it’s not really that hard at all.   I thought back to my grocery bills, and I average ~$120.00 a week (including hygiene necessities).   My limit would be $154.   I’m already living very close to a similar sized family on food stamps.    You can see my weekly plan here.  We normally eat out twice per week, one lunch, and one dinner.   Lunch averages $20 downtown for the two of us downtown, and dinner usually is ~$30 depending on where we go.  So if I’d cut out that lunch, I think it’d be a wash.

There’s a few things that I do that probably make this easy for my family.  First is I always try to make a little extra supper so I can take LO’s to work the next day.  Eating out is expensive, and you rarely get what you pay for.   Second is I plan out the weeks meals.  I’m too rigid on the meal schedule and that drives the wife a little crazy, but it works.   And since spring is in full force I can cook a lot of meats on the grill one evening, and eat them several times during the week.   Never doubt the power of a good plan (and awesome Weber grill).

Looking at the menu we don’t eat a lot of fancy foods.  Fish and shrimp is about as luxurious as I get here in Indiana.  I could get even more stingy on the grocery list if I had to.  I pay a little extra for some conveniences.  I buy cage free or organic eggs when they aren’t outrageously priced.  I buy a gallon of fresh OJ every week.  I buy frozen steamer bags of veggies.  I buy a lot of organic produce that adds 100% to the cost of those items.   The “green” tax, gotta love it.

So speaking of the diet, I’m happy to report a good week.  I’m currently sitting at 208.5, which shattered the 210 barrier that had been holding a steady defense for a couple of weeks.  I was getting a bit depressed looking at the same numbers every day, so I decided to stick hard and fast to the diet for a week then check.  Paid off, booya.   Still on pace to be below 200 come the end of May.   ZOMG fat guy in a bikini for summer time!  Note to self.  Don’t post pics.

Speaking of pics… the garden is coming along nicely.  I keep thinking about posting pics at work, then promptly forgetting about them at home.   Lets just say it’s shaping up to be a good harvest.   I built my tomato stand and it looks pretty good, I hope these upside down planters are worth the money.  Now if I can just keep the rabbits out of the garden…

Some green links to read, both from the same site.  PeePoo bags, yeah you read that right.  RRR for the garden.  Cool stuff.

April 29, 2009   Posted in: Diet / Health, Food Stamps, Green, Recycling, Weight  No Comments

Happy Earth Day

It’s probably rude to cut the grass on earth day right?  Yes….

Living green is work.  There’s extra steps and cost involved to do many things, and to me it all comes back to convienence.  We have paid a lot, and sacrificed more for convienence.   There’s somethings that I don’t want to live without.  Indoor plumbing?  Highly convienent, and I’d like to keep that thankyouverymuch.  AC?   ZOMG yes, fat man can’t sleep at night without it.  But pre-packaged 100 cal snack packs?  Retarded.  It’s convienent to someone though, and they pay more for it than a normal sized package of the same product.  Same goes for individually wrapped cheese slices.  That one pisses me off.   Seriously a wrapper for every slice of cheese?

Then there’s the cost.  Buy organic?  Costs more money.    I’ll give you an example.  The wife normally shops at Wal-Mart.  It’s the closest thing to the house that costs a resonable amount of money for groceries.  Regular eggs there are about $1.29 for a dozen.  Cage-free NON-organic eggs cost around $3.00 for a dozen.  Organic cage-free eggs cost over $4.00 a dozen.  It’s a huge jump up in price.   Sure I could buy my organic eggs from some farmer close by, but then I’d be spending even more money in gas and emissions to get them.   Cauliflower is $2.00 a head, $4.50 for organic.  It’s a “green” tax, and it seems to be getting more expensive.  I feel penalized by trying to buy responsible.   Want to buy some low VHC paint?  Yeah, it’s extra.   *grumble*

My father stayed with me last week, and since the wife was out of town on business we ate out a lot.  That in turn made my garbage output for the week double.  I could have done a little better recycling some of the drink lids, and paper, but the convienence of eating out cost me a whole extra garbage bag.  I felt ashamed.  I suck.

Enough of the frustrations, some cool “green” stuff to share.

Sunchips promises to have 100% compostable packaging by 2010.  Pretty sweet as we’re big into composting now.

WholeEarth makeup.  Make yourself look pretty and feel good about it.

Folia.  Pretty neat website that helps you monitor growing a garden.  I may do this and write a review.

Have fun.

April 22, 2009   Posted in: Green, News  2 Comments

Weekly Summary 4/20/09

Ok, so it’s more like a monthly summary.  Sue me.

I’ve eaten horribly the last two weeks.  A coworker was in town for one week (ate out every meal), and my father was in town last week (again eating out a lot).  The first week I gained 2 lbs, the second week I did a lot better and lost 3, even while eating out a lot.   So I net a one pound loss for the two weeks.  That’s not going to help me on the schedule I laid out.  So it’s going to be a low food intake week.  We’ll need to play catch up a bit.   I’m sitting at 212.5,  so I’m planning to be below 200 in 6 weeks.  Come on exercise…

The truck… mmm, it’s still yummy.  It’s big, and my coworker said his Prius could probably fit in the cupholder.   Probably.  When you are going with 4 people minimum anywhere, you need capacity.   The Tahoe has that covered.  Averaging 21.5 mpg right now on 3rd tank of gas.  Long stretch of cruise controled interstate will net 27 mpg.  That’s pretty nice for a big ole truck.  And that brings us to the downside.  It’s not a truck.  It’s built on a truck frame, rides like a truck, but sacrifices the utility of a truck for 8 person capacity.  I can’t just go grab a sheet of plywood, and that kinda ticks me off.   I may buy a trailer, but then I’d have to store it.  We’ll see…

I tilled up the front flower beds to grow some lettuce and herbage.  The neighbors totally looked at me wierd.  We’re getting the landscaping blocks delivered Wednesday to make the border look nice and neat so I at least look presentable.   Tomato plant hangers are ready to hang the tomaters,  peas and spinach in the garden doing well.   Pics incoming, promise.

On the internets front I’d love to peronsonally thank the small select group of spammers hogging up the comments box.  I hope you burn in internet hell, and *poof*, you’re gone.

Gotta run.

April 20, 2009   Posted in: News  One Comment

The Tahoe, week 1

First week of the new truck.  It still has that new-truck-full-of-nasty-chemicals smell.  Which ironically, is nice.  Probably a mental “money” thing, or a brain check.

/brain voice on.

“Is this ours?”  “Yes?  Ok, we like it.”

/brain voice off.

The ride is still “truckish”.  It bounces along the road, swallows most bumps without too much trouble.  It’s got a lot of sprung weight moving around.  Probably one of the most pleasing things is the road noise, or specifically, the lack there of.   By far the noisiest parts are the tires (low rolling resistance = higher noise?), and the stupid DVD player spooling for the nav.

Averaging 21.1 mpg right now, which is damn nice for a truck that size.  We had 2 adults and 6 kids in it yesterday, and it was easy.  That’s maximizing baby.  8 people and 21 mpg is pretty awesome.  So how long is it going to take for the fuel economy to pay off….

Assuming $2.00 gas stays the same for a while.   12,000 miles driven per year, 21 mpg for the Tahoe, 15 mpg for the Silverado it replaced, and the hybrid option was 2k.

(12,000/21)*2.00 = $1142 in gas for the Tahoe, $1627 for the Silverado.  Estimated fuel savings of  242 gallons (30%!!), or $484 per year.  That’s roughly 4.25 years to pay off with fuel savings.  If gas creeps back up to $2.50 it’ll take 3 years, or if it jumps back up to $4.00 it’ll take 2  years.  If I can feather the throttle to 22 mpg, I can shave off 0.4 years off the payback.

Kids haven’t watched a DVD yet.  I’ll be saving that surprise for a nice long road trip somewhere.  That’s like money in the bank.

March 30, 2009   Posted in: Hybrid  No Comments

Random green post…

Pininfarina has teamed up and designed an electric car with a French company Bollore.  You may recognize Pininfarina as the Italian company has designed some of the world’s most beautiful cars.  They know sexy design.  This car is called the B0 (B Zero) and it’s got no shortage of sexy.  Looks like they are taking orders… line up here.

Got a new baby?  *poke Goof*  Green deals on baby gear. 

Article on a interesting topic of Co2 containment.   They are going to pump C02 into the ground to try and store it and monitor the results.  Will that help, I’m not sure.  We’re already in the danger levels now.

And adding one more now… Pepsi Launching Greener vending machines.

March 30, 2009   Posted in: Green, Hybrid  No Comments

Weekly weight summary - 3/27/09

Kinda went longer than a week without posting, my bad.  Went on a road trip, and I’ve been working at night a lot more.

Sitting at 215.0 right now.   The road trip was a little rough food wise, and I drank quiet a few beers.  That cost me 5lbs of wieght gain, and oh did that piss me off.  At home I kicked some ass in the yard work and lost 5lbs over the weekend.   Sweat, lots of sweat, and very little eating.  Yes, I know it’s not the healthiest method.  I don’t care, I was pissed.  It’s over, and I’m back on schedule.  Did 4 days at the gym last week, and 3 this week.  I got sick over the last weekend and Monday I was feeling like crap.  I worked out and it damn near killed me.  I felt worse when I woke up Tuesday, and called in sick to the gym.   Feeling better now, almost over this cold just in time for a nice weekend.

New recipes tried this week….  Did a spicy shrimp/bok choy/noodle dish that came from Rachel Ray, and it was pretty good.  I do that again sometime.    Shrimp and Grits, not diet food at all.  Wife really enjoyed it, but I could take it or leave it.  While not new, I made a Toscano Soup, and it’s just flipping awesome.  There’s no hiding it, I love it to death.  Also did Coq au Vin normally I’m a big Alton Brown fan, but I didn’t like his version so much.  Tyler’s worked very well, and it’s a great way to use up a bottle of Merlot that was horrible tasting.

Getting close to 200 and I’m so motivated to get below I would consider donating my legs.  I’ll hold off for now though.

March 27, 2009   Posted in: Hacker's Diet  2 Comments