Meet The New Leaf, Same As The Old Leaf

Morning weigh-in: 181#, 12% BF

No exercise yesterday. I decided to do a ride after dinner, then realized -- too late to change plans and go to the gym -- that all my outdoor exercise gear was in the wash. So I finished the laundry while doing some computer stuff, then hit Which Brew while it dried. Good conversation with Scott U, about the weird adventure we shared with a very strange character on Saturday night. (We ended up walking around Easton about 12:30-1:00 AM with some dude who claimed to be part of Easton's "Center Square hippy scene" pre-1973, after which he decamped to Florida/Jamaica/Tucson. Personally, I think the guy spent a lot of time in Bullshittistan.)

Speaking of Scott, Scott S stopped by the house last evening before I went out. He finally picked up that bike (that he'd loaned to some girl downtown years ago), was riding it to where he parks his car but the tyres were flat. I got the pump & got him going on his way.

Turning the Corner

Morning weigh-in: 181#, 15% BF

Happy Groundhog Day! This ought to help you celebrate. The sun is turning in the sky -- though (and as any subterranean-dwelling groundhog will tell you) the true harbinger of spring is water: dripping from the trees, flowing secretly and seeping up from the ground, whitening your breath in the damp air by the bonfire...

Do you reject the glamor of evil? Today marks the end of the Battle of Stalingrad in 1943. Warnography fans know it as the bloodiest battle in all of history.

Nobody tells me nothin: Get well soon, longtime reader Toni! Rumor has it that you injured your hand, hope it's not too serious.

Well, last night was Mug Club Night. I made it an early one, gothtere early, ate dinner with Brian, kept it to two beers (Bell's Kalamazoo Stout, yum), and was out of there by 10:15 -- in bed by 11:00. Still kind of tired, been that way for a week or so -- maybe the extra work, maybe overtraining, maybe just spring fever come early... Weighed myself before going out (unnoficial wt 180.5#) so I only took a half-pound hit.

Tonight is the towpath, switched from Friday's ride to avoid more pennies from heaven.

Sunlight Growing In The Belly Of The Earth

Happy Candlemas! No morning weigh-in: I overslept and forgot about it in the morning rush. I expected good things, since I was pretty good yesterday (lunch was broiled chicken sandwich, dinner was baked stuffed tofu w/ sauerkraut and steamed asparagus, and I hit the gym after dinner.) Tonight is Mug Club Night, so I don't know what tomorrow's scale will show.

TOPS-20 Voyager: I got an account at twenex.org, started playing around with that. It's so strange, you think you know computers -- and after a few years I think I know my way around Windows, Unix and Mac (the old Mac), at least enough to use them -- then I come across this, and even though I've seen and used similar things, it's really like a foreign language. Can't figure out how to actually do anything yet, but I'm definitely becoming a master at typing "help."

Actually, I don't know how into Teh Twenex I'll get in the near future, since my next project will be "Operation Crock Pot." Stay tuned...

Junkyard Art

Here's a photo of the giant chicken at the junkyard.


















And here is a photo of, well, I guess it's Atlas holding up the World Trade Center and some bikes.

Time For Some Java?

Morning weigh-in: 180#, 8% BF

Lunch & dinner yesterday were the two halves of a turkey sub. I worked late, then went to a spin class at the gym -- my first in a few years. I thought the instructor was supposed to be my old Gangster teammate Kim (she runs their aerobics program, teaches a kickass spin class), but it was some woman I never saw before. Good enough workout I guess, but the music (Loverboy? Loverboy??) was enough to make me gag...

Evening was spent reading about chess, and Wittgenstein, and fiddling with the computer.

(Meantime, something I didn't mention the other day: that blueberry-cinnamon flavored coffee kind of grows on you, and it's also got an incredible kick; I was wired the other day from just two cups.)

So anyway, sudoko. There's a girl in Easton, forget her name but she dates the old singer from Rhino Campground. Super-duper hottie despite the gorilla-girl aesthetic, she can sometimes be found hanging out on quiet nights at Porter's, doing what I originally thought were acrostics, but it turns out they're the hot new puzzle from Japan (via England?). I happened upon some references the other day, looked it up and ran across some interesting Java programs that deal with this -- maybe I'll pick up where I left off, playing with Java... so it looks like I'll be drinking lotsa coffee, typing away, talking faster and faster, playing chess and running shell & awk scripts and java programs and -- help me Too Much Coffee Man!!

Oh, and by the way, check this out.

The World Is My Idea

Morning weigh-in: 182#, 6% BF I think I'm detecting a pattern...

A chicken in the rain: Went out yesterday, took photos (coming soon) of the welded metal sculptures down by the junkyard, and I couldn't help but notice that the junkyard itself was practically empty. No doubt it's because of the high metal prices worldwide, as China's demand for steel keeps rising; there are probably a lot of scrapyards looking barren these days. Sure hope they don't decide to break up the sculptures and sell them too.

Sneakernet: After that I stopped by Brian's house, where I tried my pen drive on his computer. It worked fine, all the stuff I put on it was available. After that we hung out for a bit, had some chili he made in his crock pot: we talked chili, crock pots and slow-cooking recipes...

Tractatus Logico-Catfighticus: After Brian's I went to Barnes and Noble, picked up two books on chess (sigh), a slow-cooking (ie crock pot) cookbook, and Wittgenstein's Poker, a book about an altercation in 1946 between Ludwig Wittgenstein and Karl Popper, at the monthly meeting of the Cambridge (or was it Oxford?) Moral Science Club. Good story so far.

One More Show I Don't Have To Watch: Kung Fu Monkey takes on Lost.

How To Waste Time On A Sunday

Here I am, sitting in front of the computer: rain has been predicted, so no ride is planned; as I'm typing this I'm drinking blueberry-cinnamon coffee (yuck), surfing the web, reading the blogs and news aggregators, checking all my emails, futzing around at the Super Dimension Fortress (just checking in on the bulletin boards, etc), and, um, watching the chess games hosted over at the International Chess Club -- I'm using xboard, and connecting through their internet chess server, didn't even know such things existed.

Needless to say, what that really means is that I had lunch at the Quadrant yesterday, where a bunch of people were all playing chess. They were also out of the coffee I like, only had enough for themselves until the big Tuesday shipment arrives, and so they sold me a small amount of their, um, less popular beans to get me through until then. I feel like a junkie; I guess I'll have to pick up Chess For Dummies or something, create an excuse to hang out there and await my fix. Back home, the computer consistently whoops my butt; I'm not sure I have the patience to really learn the game.

Anyway, good thing I killed my television, freeing up my life like this, I reeeallly learned my lesson, never again will I sit staring at a screen, mesmerized and turning into a mushroom -- a-and this time I mean it! At the rate things are going, I'll be eating breakfast just as the sun goes down...

Kalidasa's Triumph: My job is done here, it's afternoon now and the rain should start soon, though the radar looks like we're in a bubble of dryness for now. It was beautiful out yesterday; I was going to take some pictures downtown and over by the junkyard, but the camera batteries were dead -- keep your powder dry dammit! All batts are now fully charged; I think I'll eat some breakfast, then go out and take those pictures, so I'll leave you with this artist's conception of the space elevator.