anecdotes

Interesting Visitor

I just had the most interesting experience. I was down in the basement, messing around online, when I heard a knock on the door, closely followed by the doorbell. I had the door open and the screen door locked, so there was no pretending I wasn’t home once I saw that it wasn’t UPS. It was an older gentleman, bearded, tallish, wearing a short-sleeved shirt and shorts. No clipboard, no nametag.

“Hello,” I called from the screen door.

The man introduced himself by telling me that he lived on the other side of South Avenue, was a retired English teacher and amateur astronomer, and was working on his third novel. He said that he takes a long walk every day — I was his last stop, and he’d walked three miles already — and that he stops along the way to ask if there’s any yardwork or odd jobs that he can do for a couple of dollars. We talked politely for a moment, and I assured him that, no, I’d pass on the offer of yardwork.

Then we chatted for a while longer, briefly discussing his trip to Ireland, where palm trees apparently grow in people’s back yards, because of the warm Gulf Stream bringing the large seeds up to the isle; his trip to northern Canada, where the nights are short and late and the sun barely moves from east to west; our trip to Japan and the accompanying God-awful airplane flight; his novel-writing experience and our mutual respect for short story writers; and his stint in the National Guard during the May Day riots in Washington, guarding the White House, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Vietnam vets who were accustomed to shooting human targets and feeling mighty uncomfortable about it.

Then he apologized for taking up so much of my time, and I assured him that I’d enjoyed talking with him — which, oddly enough, I had. He said, “Dou itashimashite,” which means “You’re welcome” (I think that may have been all the Japanese he knew, but it’s more than most). I couldn’t call up an appropriate answer in Japanese, so I answered him with a basic hai, and bid him enjoy his three-mile walk home.

I’m not entirely sure how much of that was factual, but he was certainly an interesting fellow. I didn’t mind talking to him, really. If he came back some other day, I’d probably talk to him again, and ask him if either of his novels have been published.

webdesign

Accomplishment

“Task” for potential employer: done.
Time to complete: 10.5 hours.

I’ve never coded someone else’s website layout before. I liked it. Could be that my calling is strictly as a web developer, not a designer. That, plus I’m a grammar nazi. When I’m plugging in content, I *have* to correct comma splices and misspellings. Web copy editor, anyone?

Now, it’s time to focus on following up with other companies to whom I’ve submitted a resume online. I am armed with legal-size paper and a full clip of determination.

I have three months to land a job in my field. Granted, if I don’t, I get to take home a decent chunk of severance pay… but it’s not worth it to waste job-hunting time and possibly miss the job for me, just to stick around and get my severance. You know?

weight loss 2 Comments

Body For Life, Week #1

I’ve been completely exhausted for the last two days now, and it’s not casting a positive light on my feelings for my one-week mark on the Body for Life diet. I’ve even resorted to caffeine — Diet Mountain Dew. Add to that a less-than-stellar weight-loss for the week, and little to no change in my body fat reading, and I’m a little disenchanted. That doesn’t mean I’m quitting, though.

This week’s official weight: 199.5 lbs. That’s a one and a half pound loss from my official starting weight of 201 last Tuesday, even though last Wednesday charted me at 200 even. My body fat percentage hasn’t changed much yet: last Tuesday’s reading was just over 31%, last Wednesday’s reading was just over 32%, and yesterday’s one-week reading was 32.8%. Granted, my Omron Body Fat Analyzer is really only good for a guesstimate, so I should probably go easy on the body fat readings and only do them with my monthly photos.

I’ve read online that a lot of BFL participants don’t experience any actual weight loss; the major change is in body composition. Fat takes up five times the volume of muscle, after all, so losing a given amount of fat and gaining the equivalent weight in muscle would make a huge difference.

I do have a couple of visible, non-number-related goals for this 12-week program:

  1. To have my thighs not touch at the top when I stand with my feet shoulder-width apart
  2. For my upper arms to be the same shape (or close to it) when my arms are raised and when they’re down at my sides (i.e. no more embarrassing arm-fat expansion when my arms are pressed against my sides)

I think those are reasonable expectations for a 12-week weight-training program, really.

We made a run to Dick’s Sporting Goods this past weekend, and got me a couple of 10-pound plates for my dumbbells and a couple of spring-loaded weight collars to replace my lame ones that require tools in order to change plates. I was a big dork, though, and didn’t heed Aaron’s repeated question of “Are you sure that’s all you need?”

I’m planning to go back to Dick’s on Thursday or Friday and buy myself two more 10-pound plates (you need TWO pairs of plates for dumbbells, silly), new dumbbell bars with threaded collars (the clips don’t quite fit on my paint-chipped garage-sale bars), and a stronger resistance band (mainly for leg presses — my quads are getting neglected, compared to everything else). After that, I should be good to go for a while. That’ll give me dumbbells ranging from 5 lbs to 35 lbs, with the plates I already have, and that should be sufficient for my needs for at least another couple few weeks.

The diet has been going well, for the most part. I’m taking advantage of the Cheat Day aspect of the program, and saving all my evil cravings for Saturdays (except the dark chocolate that got the best of me yesterday). I’m eating six small meals a day, which seems like a lot, even though the meals are small. I *am* enjoying getting to eat sweet potatoes and pasta again, even in small portions.

Even though the scale hasn’t seen much action, I still *feel* better (apart from being tired these past few days). I stand taller, I feel firmer, and my muscles are pleasantly sore almost all the time with all this working out I’ve been doing.

I can dig it.

writing

Writer at Heart

Despite my assertion that I would get to bed early after a day of being exhausted for no good reason (except lack of sleep, I suppose), I’m still at my computer, twiddling with my “story.” Well, my most recent long and unfinished story, anyway. The one I worked on for NaNoWriMo 2005, I believe it was.

I’ve been listening to my backlogged episodes of I Should Be Writing, and have (unfortunately) started getting the writing bug again. I say this is unfortunate because I have a list of other creative and quasi-creative projects that are much higher on the priority list than fiction-writing. So, in lieu of getting wrapped up in my world of love-struck vampires (I really should read up and see how effing cheesy my premise is, compared to other valid plots within the genre), I went technical and decided to reformat the 16,000 words I have into standard manuscript format.

The last time I had touched my story was November 2, 2006 at 10:46pm. I’m sure I’d edited the wiki since then — jeez, maybe not. Only a few days later. Guess I really haven’t worked on this in quite a while. At any rate, going through and adding a pound sign in all the scene breaks allowed me to skim through the story and see things that jumped out either as ridiculous or as needing more detail.

My start of a manuscript was 35 pages before reformatting. Now, double-spaced in Courier font with one-inch margins, it’s 75 pages. I’m so used to seeing computer-generated type that looking at a layout that simulates the typewritten page seems odd and blocky.

Once I finish my laundry list of job-hunting-related and other website responsibilities, I have a good part of my story in my head, ready to go. I just need to type it out. And make it sound right. (Aye, there’s the rub.) I have my offline wiki “story bible” underway (thankfully — there’s a lot I can forget in a year), and I really, REALLY want to finish this story.

Remember, this is my second attempt at a potential novel or novella. My first “real” attempt at novel-length fiction is a good premise, but I’m afraid it’s going to need a complete rewrite, and I’m not even halfway through it yet, and I haven’t touched it in… *checks file* …wow. Almost three years. Main setting/plot points to that one: Matrix-esque Arthur-C-Clarkian headgear for direct information transfer, mobsters infiltrating the police, virtual crime and violence, a subplot of racism vs. cultural pride, and the requisite love interest. The trouble with that one is the setting, really. And all the crazy subplots. I want it to be something I would enjoy reading, but I don’t know how it all fits together yet. I want to jump into the future and read it and be entranced by the story, instead of having to figure out the story myself. You know?

One other thing I wanted to write here before I go crash out without making my lunch: I was listening to the Motivation to Move podcast the other day, and Scott Smith rattled off a quick but fascinating list of questions to ask yourself about a situation or decision you may be having trouble resolving. I thought these questions would also be great writing questions to determine character motivations and plot possibilities:

  1. What would happen if I did?
  2. What would happen if I didn’t?
  3. What wouldn’t happen if I did?
  4. What wouldn’t happen if I didn’t?

Seems bizarre and circular to just look at the questions, but think about what they really mean. You could use these for plot points, for character decisions, for all kinds of writing-related issues. Just wanted to throw those out there, so I’d remember them later.

And with that, my readers, I am going to sleep.

P.S. – Is it bad form to ask your First Reader to read your work-in-progress? I feel like I want feedback on where the story is going before it gets there, so I can rein it back and take it elsewhere if it’s getting dumb and cliché.

randomness

Ack.

Feeling quite busy. Have job-hunting-related projects to complete. Have websites to maintain. Have to CLEAN MY DESK OMG. Only getting one major task accomplished per night, and blogging about Japan is falling to the wayside (for now).

I’m proud of myself that I’ve still been working out every evening, without fail (except on my Saturday off), and have continued to pre-pack my lunches for the next day.

If I ever manage to get caught up with all the things I want to accomplish in my life, that’ll only be because I’m dead.