Ice Station Zebra

Morning weigh-in (Wednesday): 182#, 10% BF
Blood Pressure (Wednesday): 156/78, 59 BPM

Morning weigh-in (Thursday): 184.5#, 5% BF
Blood Pressure (Thursday): 140/93, 52 BPM

Well, last day of summer...

So I went to the doctor yesterday after work, and my blood pressure there (where blood pressures are traditionally higher due to doctor-visit stress) was 130/80, pretty close to normal. Talking about it with the nurse, she told me that those home sphygmomanometer thingies are notoriously inaccurate. Oh well, that might explain the slow and steady rise, as my little toy gets progressively further out of calibration... The doctor came in, saw my cold/sinus problem and went to town -- I got two prescriptions before I got his attention back to the physical and my blood pressure. He really didn't need to do much for that, the nurse basically set me up with a prescription for a bunch of diagnostic blood/urine/stool tests. I'll probably go to Quest or something nearly next week.

After that I went to the Chain Gang meeting at Doug & Lori's place. Good meeting, people were there I haven't seen in a while: Judy was back with tales of London, and Brian had some stories as well, except it was Canada in his case. Pizza dinner, good beer but the hops were bothering me (so were the dog allergies) and my cold seemed to intensify. I left early -- or at least, not long after the meeting proper ended; I stayed really just long enough to have Cindy gave me the lowdown on the different tests I'd been prescribed.

Listening: In case the title from yesterday's pirate post didn't clue you in, I've been jamming to Stan Ridgeway lately. Today I was listening to the song "I Wanna Be A Boss," and thinking about how the song goes from "my life sucks, it sure would be better if I were rich," to the wildest fantasies:

And everyone will know me
I'll be more famous than Howard Hughes
I'll grow a long beard and watch
Ice Station Zebra in the nude

And grow my nails like Fu-Manchu
Keep a row of specimen jars
Get other people to work for me -- ?well
Maybe I'll buy the planet Mars, and
Build an amusement park up there
Better than old Walt's place
You'll have to be a millionaire to go
We'll smoke cigars and lounge in lace
Talk the talk of businessmen
And bosses that we are
So here's to me -- the drinks are free
'Cause I just bought this bar

For some reason (maybe just associations on the word "ice"), this reminded me of "The Iceman Cometh," and the pathetic dreams of the losers in the bar. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go to Which Brew.