What am I doing for New Years? I don’t know. What am I doing for Christmas? I don’t know. Christmas decorations? Never got them up. Family? Celebrating without me this year. Friends? I forgot, yet again, to collect addresses and send out cards. Today? One of just a few at the office, everyone else has already left for vacation.
This year feels like it was a waste of life. I got a job and paid off some debts. Actually, right now I’m debt free. My most significant commitment is the 2 year Sprint contract that came from my phone this summer. One would think with this kind of financial freedom that I would feel liberated, but I don’t.
Since 2004, I’ve maintained a snowboarding blog at my old Shobek domain. Last night I moved all of those hundreds of posts to this blog and replaced the old site with a redirect. I also once maintained a blog on building virtual communities on blogger. I imported those posts as well. Unfortunately, blogger doesn’t allow an easy method to redirect traffic. Eventually, I’ll pull that blog down entirely I think.
A respected friend of mine (who happens to be a feminist) sent me a link to “Schrödinger’s Rapist: or a guy’s guide to approaching strange women without being maced.” I wouldn’t have read the article at all, had it not been for the recommendation from my friend. After reading it and stewing on it, I’m going to respond. I’m responding not only to the author, but more so to the women who identify with the post itself.
In this blog post, I want to do what I feel Phaedra Starling failed to do. I’m going to attempt to talk about this topic across the gender line. It took me 4 different sessions to read her blog post from start to finish. The first few times, indignation overtook me. I suspect I’m not alone as the comments appear to have been heavily moderated before being closed.
If you haven’t followed the media noise over Lily Allen and filesharing lately… it’s a lot to catch up on. The highlight came, for me, when Lily started an anti-filesharing blog, reposted another author’s content without citing the source (irony much?), and then took the whole blog down when she was getting too much “abuse”… I can’t speak enough about how brilliant and accurate Dan Bull’s response is. Go get the MP3 and share it!!!!
It’s over! I made it through Burning Man and the only damage done was a cut, a second degree burn, and a sinus infection. Ok, actually, that was more damage than I was expecting. It was a good experience, but lacked much of the impact I experienced last year. Still, there were many wonderful moments and it was everything I had hoped for.
Since my return, I’ve totally abandonded the fitness and healthy diet I adopted before I left. Fighting off the sinus infection seems like a pretty good excuse. I thought I was going to pass out at work on Friday. I think I’m in good shape to get some work done tomorrow… This is good, because it’s about to get really crazy for a few weeks. It’s kinda like finals in college, only I’m not that young and eager anymore.
So I’ve been at this fitness thing for 24 days now. After the gym this evening, I decided to take another set of photos and check them out side by side from where I started. I had no idea I’d put on so much weight. Even now, looking at the Day 1 photo, I feel like I was really losing control. I suppose, in a way, it’s a sign that I was enjoying life. I’ve been in a new relationship, have a pretty stable job, and have gotten fairly comfortable.
Before we talk about the sex trade, I want to talk about hamburgers. Lets face it, there are a lot of overweight people. By overweight, what I really mean is fat. This is particularly true in the USA. The USA has a lot of fat people. Fat people are less healthy. They have more health issues and drive up the costs of health care insurance. The high cost of health insurance kills people, so fat people kill other people with their fatness.
Fat people also squish over into your seat on flights and at the movies. They block aisle at the super market. While sometimes it’s not their fault, due to a medical condition such as a bad thyroid, most of the time fat people are fat because they eat too much and don’t exercise enough. In countries where people lack food and are starving to death, you don’t really see anyone who’s overweight due to an overactive thyroid. Funny that. For all intents and purposes, being fat is a choice. If you disagree, just stop reading and go away right now.
It seems I like to post on Wednesday nights. Actually, since I do Yoga on Wednesdays, it gives me a chance to weigh in on the scales at the gym – which I assume are considerably more accurate than the Target scale in my bathroom. Speaking of weight, tonight I was 171… and a half. I could round up to 172, but I was actually close to 171… but since I was so close to the exact halfway mark, it seems like cheating.
My server time was off. My last post was dated a Thursday but actually made on a Wednesday. But, whatever, I’m pretty sure today is the 16th day into this thing. This past weekend I took an amazing backpacking trip. We hiked several hours a day on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. That makes me feel a little better about not getting any exercise on Monday and Tuesday. And the fresh cutthroat trout we snagged out of the lake and ate made me feel better about those yummy smores. Nom.
I took Sunday off the eating cycle as per Tim Ferriss’ recommendations. I didn’t eat “what I wanted” so much so as what was available. I had 3 bagels that day. Otherwise, I’ve been keeping the diet very close to the meal plans I’ve shown in previous posts.
I’ve also kept the exercise going as well. The bike loop that nearly made me black out on Day 2 was much easier on Monday. So much so, that I hiked back up the trail and ran a little of it with Nino. Near the end of last week, I was feeling horrible. Today I feel pretty darn good. I figure that I was either a) fighting off a bit of sickness or allergies or b) explunging a lot of toxins breaking loose in my body from the sudden burst of exercise. Or maybe it’s c) something else entirely.
What am I doing for New Years? I don’t know. What am I doing for Christmas? I don’t know. Christmas decorations? Never got them up. Family? Celebrating without me this year. Friends? I forgot, yet again, to collect addresses and send out cards. Today? One of just a few at the office, everyone else has already left for vacation.
Since 2004, I’ve maintained a snowboarding blog at my old Shobek domain. Last night I moved all of those hundreds of posts to this blog and replaced the old site with a redirect. I also once maintained a blog on building virtual communities on blogger. I imported those posts as well. Unfortunately, blogger doesn’t allow an easy method to redirect traffic. Eventually, I’ll pull that blog down entirely I think.
