A box a day

Since my grandma passed away, I've been accumulating a whole bunch of stuff. I always assumed the "natural order of things" included that by the time your parents are supposed to pass away, their children are going to be in a position to absorb the extra stuff, whether it be furniture, knick knacks, pictures or property. This ultimately leaves the youngest generation free of the unwanted (yet) stuff and the older with the fond memories of their dearly departed. Having assumed this stuff earlier in life than (I assume) most, the burden of stuff has fallen upon me.

After sorting through most of my grandma's things, throwing away 30 year old bank statements, newspaper clippings, hotel stationary and matchboxes, one thing became very clear to me. My grandma hadn't been in a position to absorb the extra stuff either. My solution to dealing with my grandmother's belongings thus far has been to box it up, put it in storage and deal with it later.

One of my favorite quotes is of Rabbi Hillel, "If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am not for others, what am I. And if not now, when?"

This seems to be an apt reminder that throwing boxes into a closet for the future to deal with is not the most productive use of my future. No one else is going to do it, and if it doesn't get done now, then I'm left with unopened useless boxes, ignorant of their contents. So my mission for the next little while is to go through a box of stuff each day and see what I come across.


Today's box played a large part in even getting me to post about my endeavor. Today I had a box, with two smaller boxes inside of it, the kind you'd expect from a 1950's department store when they box up clothes for you. Inside the first box was nothing of interest. A ton of banking statements, tax paperwork, canceled checks, car load applications; all dated from before 1976. I had already shredded a bunch of other financial papers but these I simply tossed away considering my ssn wouldn't be on them and everyone else has passed away and had accounts closed by now.

The second box taught me a ton about my grandfather. Things I already knew: I am named after my grandfather; he died before I was born; he was the smartest man in the world; he was well mannered and well liked; he invented a new type of leather that probably existed in a car your parents owned; cancer was his diagnosis, along with my mom and grandma; he shaved alot but wasn't particularly hairy; he always dressed sharp.

What I hadn't known are the circumstances surrounding his death. He got cancer, mom got cancer, cancer just happens, cancer sucks. Apparently my grandma had no such opinion, cancer had a reason and someone was to blame. The second box was full of medical documents, newspaper clippings, letters from attorneys, doctors, and judges. After my grandfather died, my grandma went on a crusade to find the industrial chemical that my grandfather was exposed to and infected him with "the cancer". For a good year, my grandma had gone through medical journals making photocopies, compared chemicals my grandfather worked with against drugs used in his cancer treatment against all of the latest research at the time. It was an uphill battle, not knowing anything medical or chemical, but she fought. I have the box full of documents to show for it.

My grandma's notes are unfortunately useless. Apparently in college she took courses in note taking and becoming an executive assistant. Her notes are incredibly detailed and written extremely fast. They're also unfortunately written illegibly and in a language that only barely resembles English. Symbols stand in for words, sentences only three or four symbols long. This makes it incredibly difficult to make out the mundane. Prescription names and dosages, doctors orders and daily routines, all the regular things I could recognize for their intent, just not their content. The one thing my grandma never wrote in her particular scratch was how my grandfather felt. Between doctors orders written on backs of envelopes were sheets of holiday inn stationary describing in full detail the rash on his chest, color texture and pain level, his appetite, headaches, and all other potential pieces of data the doctor might find a cure in.

In these notes it was clear just how much my grandmother loves and adores my grandfather. The detail she could write about his condition is more than I could describe even about myself, let alone someone else. The amount of time she spent by his side, before and after his death, is simply amazing. It's a high standard to live up to for sure.

I'm just hoping that the next box I find will evoke as much of a response as this one had. At the very least though, it will be one less box of stuff hanging around. I've reduced the box to a few random newspaper clippings, letters from lawyers, doctors notes and a few bits of memorabilia. All fitting in one manila envelope. Yay.

I wish I...

I wish I was taller
I wish I had a dog
I wish I read more
I wish I could cook
I wish I had less stuff
I wish I was confident
I wish I could run faster
I wish I could play guitar
I wish I knew what to say
I wish I learned a new skill
I wish I knew when to say it
I wish I was more expressive
I wish I felt good all of the time
I wish I knew another language
I wish I could make a difference
I wish I could get out of my head
I wish I could meet people easier
I wish I knew what I was thinking
I wish I could manage time better
I wish I had visited more of the U.S.
I wish I knew anything about plants
I wish I could see your point of view
I wish I knew what would happen if...
I wish things could have been different
I wish things could always be the same
I wish I spent more time with my friends
I wish I was more motivated to complete things
I wish I was comfortable outside of my comfort zone

I'm 5'10"; I exercise regularly, I can't beat a 15 minute mile yet; I am very good at music in theory, in practice I very often fall short; I have great intentions and a good sense of a choice given to me, I cannot come up with a choice to save my life; I am confident that I can do anything, I am also confident that I am often wrong; My proudest strength is self-reliance, my greatest weakness is not asking for help; I am an excellent listener, I make for terrible conversation; I can fix your computer, chances are I'll do it for free, most likely I won't charge because I enjoy the company, but honestly I would rather have a different excuse; Israeli dancing is rarely a very impressive skill, for the rest I can dance well enough not to step on your feet; If for some reason you read this very part, let me know, I'm actually interested to hear; I used to raise puppies as a kid before they were ready for adoption, the best part is I got to always be around puppies, the worst part is I had to always give up puppies; I play devils advocate constantly, with company and alone; When I feel overwhelmed in my ambitions that I end up accomplishing nothing, which is less than anything; I'm not very introspective, very often, I hope I'm doing well; I don't put things off, so much as I just forget to do them;

I feel better already

On owning an apple

Man I got it bad when it comes to the apple "remorse" bug.

Last August I bought my first significant apple product, the iPhone 3g. The hidden consequence of the purchase is the "low" price. Instead of paying 1k+ for a handheld doo-dad computer, I only paid 3 bills for it. So now to buy the new iPhone that came out, I'm looking at the much steeper "real" price of $5oo-$600 or something similar. This is only for an incremental change, nothing neccesary, but I do want.

Last February, I also decided to go for it and get the new aluminum macbook. I ended up getting the +1 version of the macbook because I wanted the handy light up keyboard. More memory, hard drive space and faster processor was all secondary to the decision. All in all, the purchase set me back 1.5k.

Now last week comes around, apple announces the new iphone and the new "macbook pro 13". The iPhone I've pretty much come to terms with. I really couldn't have waited the almost full year for the "better version" especially considering all of the use I've gotten out of it. The macbook is unfortunately another story. I have barely gotten any use out of it. Only until recently I decided to drop the bill and join the iPhone app club. Now I'm using the laptop quite a bit, but I feel like I could have waited it out, gotten the better / cheaper one. I find myself rationalizing the purchase, finding flaws in the new one, justifying every penny in my macbook+1. It doesn't seem to help really.

Once the novelty of "new macbooks" wears off and I get it in my head that new computers come out all the time, I'll be good. Of course I'll be getting a new iPhone, that's a given :P. But a new macbook pro? The one I wish I could justify upgrading, I really can't.

I &heart; music

There's no ifs, ands, or buts about it. Music is among my top 5 things that I enjoy in life. I'm almost constantly listening to music, and I'm sort of proud of my variety of listening choice. The thing I like the most about music is how it can influence me. That's especially cool because if I need to concentrate, if I need to relax, get pumped up for something, or just zone out, there's a specific genre that I can pick up and within 2 songs, I'm already in the zone. Sometimes it takes longer, but it's usually pretty quick.

Pandora Radio is my weapon of choice in the matter. I have a slurry of stations defined, mostly by specific song seed and then thumbs up and down to fine tune the rest. The cool thing is once I put on the station and it's tuned correctly, then it can go for hours on the same theme with little to no repeats depending on the station / genre.

Recently I also got myself a new set of headphones and I'm almost in love. They're ear buds, they have little sleeves that tune down outside noise, they have great bass for their size, & they have the iPhone mic / button gizmo giving me the hardware pause button I have been lacking. Best part is they work well with my motorcycle helmet. I hadn't actually gotten a chance to try them out on the road, but at home just trying them on seemed to work well.

My favorite genre of music by far has to be techno, specifically trance. Given music and a skilled DJ, the music can go on seamlessly for hours. You can choose to listen to it, or just let it play in the background. There's no positive messages, no negative messages, just good feelings. The only bad comments I can really empathize with against techno is the repetitiveness. I guess I'm just that boring of a person. On the other side, there's actually a music theory discussion behind that position that I'm a big supporter of. If music moves too fast, and I don't mean the beat, then the act of moving and the additional music loses its importance. Meanwhile if you stay in the same general area of a key or idea, then moving away from it holds that much more weight. It's easier to tease and entertain the listener in my opinion than to just constantly bombard the listener with music that's all over the place. This is especially true for a musical style that's meant to last for longer than 3-4 minutes at a time.

After that, I'm a relatively big fan of rock, alternative, a good portion of punk / grunge, "popular" rap / r&b, mainstream country, classical, experimental (at least once), and most anything that can be made on a c64.

p.s. title is on purpose

Recent history

I'm not apologizing for being lax in my updates, but it is unfortunate nonetheless. Rather than play catchup, I'll just go with recent history.

Most recently, dramatically, I was involved in yet another motorcycle accident. Again, some car being careless on the road and causing me to "take evasive action". For better or worse, the crash was also caught on video and almost everyone I know has seen it. The good thing is it's a good example of what to do during a crash (my opinion), and a sobering reminder of what can happen while riding. I've already been assured by parents I know they have shown their kids "bad things that can happen on motorcycles" and just "how dangerous they can be".

My biggest problem with statements like that is the preconception of motorcycle riders. Naturally the rider wearing bahama shorts, a cut off t-shirt, and tennis shoes is going to end up dead or well on his way even under 30 mph. Give yourself a decent jacket, full helmet, gloves, boots, sturdy pants, and an accident "as crazy as mine" is more than survivable. In fact if I had just a little extra knee / leg protection, I would have ended up just a little shaken, nothing more. Put myself in actual riding leathers and I wouldn't have had anything more than a small bruise.

That sort of brings me to my next thought. I can't wait to ride again. In fact, it's almost torture to look at new potential bikes now while I'm not even able to buy it. Nothing against anyone, but it's still worth it to me. If you don't understand, then chances are you haven't ridden, or were forced out of it for one reason or another. The rest of you may not agree, but at least you understand, so thanks.

The other things I'm really angry I'm going to miss now are my workouts, walking up / down stairs, being able to pick things up from the ground, getting in / out of my car without feeling retarded. Most of all my "semi-marathon" at the end of the month. The day before I went down, I had just finished a 4 mile run without any problem and was well on my way for the 15 miles or so I'd have to run at the end of the month.

This friday I get my stitches out of my knee. I'll try to remember to bring up with the doctor a recommended recovery schedule. Hopefully within a month I'll be able to ride & soon after I'll be back in the gym. Here's to hoping for a full recovery.

Arbitrary ways to define value

Do you ever find yourself counting things? Chances are if you don't have some sort of OCD or any particular reason to count something, then you don't. At least I assume so. This isn't to say that I count my steps from my car to the door, but there are a few things that I do randomly count for no good reason.

A trivial example is how many steps I take on a particular "block" of sidewalk. Somehow if I take less than three steps per block, then I'm going at a pretty good clip. More and I'm just mosying, less and I'm really going fast for a walk, or I'm just playing "mr. long legs" on that particular day. Point being though, I judge the quality of my walking speed based on an arbitrary distance on the ground. Especially considering sidewalk blocks are not especially consistent in their spacing.

An older popular "count" of mine is the number of lane changes I was required to make to get from one place to another. The less times I was required to change lanes to get from A to B, the more I generally enjoyed going from A to B. Most likely this theory is along the lines of it being "easier" to get there, even though I don't find changing lanes all that difficult. Though the less traffic I have to pay attention to while cruising, the better.

My most recent example of counting that I think is perhaps a little more valid is counting the number of times I need to plant my feet while riding from point A to B. Of course this is completely dependent on when I travel from A to B, the traffic at the time, the route I take, how fast I go, and a bunch of other things. But if I can get from A to B without having to put my feet down even once, that was a good ride. Sometimes I even turn it into a game at red / turning green lights to see if I can drag it on long enough to not have to plant down. So far, it's super rare to get a '0', and I don't even have an idea what an average "score" is, but it's still fun to play.

Weigh-in Number 3

Yesterday was my third cross-fit paleo weigh in. It's crazy cool how well this is going for me. The first weigh-in was after cross-fit but without active diet control. It was a good drop from my personal high weight. The second weigh-in was a ridiculous improvement, inches in places and dozens of pounds elsewhere. On top of that, the benchmark workout of Fight Gone Bad has improved at least 10 reps each time we do it.

Now comes my third weigh in. Over the past three weeks, I haven't noticed any weight loss personally, but it's not entirely unexpected. I hit a plateau as far as my weight is concerned. With that in mind, I decided to take this and turn it into a good thing. This period I had dedicated to "fitting my skin" literally. After losing almost 30+ pounds, I had quite a bit of extra skin in unattractive places. So by weighing in the morning and adjusting what I ate accordingly I tried to maintain the weight actively. I didn't change the type of foods I ate, just the amounts.

With this change I still ended up losing inches in places which was good and only 6 pounds of weight loss. Almost exactly what I was going for, and it definitely shows as well.

The most important result I just recently learned is a tangible health benefit increase. When I donated blood almost exactly one year ago, my cholesterol level was 210, just in the 200-240 low risk range. I donated blood just over 2 weeks ago and the scores are finally in. 176. Hell yes, a 40 point drop and I'm well into the "healthy" range. So not only do I actually feel better, I feel better knowing that I'm better on paper as well.

Next: Post paleo challenge plans, is there a post?

Internet in the desert

Driving between Las Vegas and Reno sucks. Plain and simple. The only thing that makes it worse (besides running a 400) is doing it solo. It's 400+ miles of mostly the same desert on a regularly trucked road and over 80% of it is two-lane. Listening to some new CDs helps pass the time, but my new found activity of choice is Facebooking the journey. It at least makes me feel like I'm talking to someone, and even a couple of my updates got replies. It's not perfect, and being on the iPhone while driving is a terrible idea, I know.

The most surprising part of the whole shebang though is the very small amount of dead space along the way, and in particular where the dead spots are. Between Tonopah and Hawthorne is some of the most empty area I can think of, but sections of the road gave me 4-5 bars of reception. On top of that, data was good to go as well, as evidenced by my recent "Facebooked" journey back from Vegas.

Originally the concept was meant to provide a timeline for my Oranim kin to see what places are along the way from Reno to our party in Vegas and give a little perspective to the drive. I quickly realized that since we were all travelling back at around the same time, no one would actually get the updates as I sent them. They're all still there for them to read though, and I know the more perceptive of the group got what I was trying to do.

In any case, I love to drive and it's better to travel with people. What better people to travel with than my entire list of Facebook friends, am I right? I've got a couple more journeys planned to Vegas in the near future, and even more fun "Nevada" factoids to potentially share. Hopefully this little one-time side project might even be educational for me and entertaining for others.

Weekend activities: Part Deux

Well there's nothing I can do about it. My weekends during the summer are officially taken. Between crossfit and NSC, my worries about what to do on a given weekend are officially over. Saturday FMP's are just part of life now, and good thing too. Best part is they don't start until later in the morning, leaving me a little bit of time to go out Friday night if I feel so inclined. Recovering from the FMP pretty much takes up the rest of my day, then leaving Saturday evenings open potentially. Then Sunday NSC has rides going on finally, meaning Sundays are pretty much booked. Again after a good 4-6 hour ride, I'm inclined to take the rest of the day to recover. Thus ending up at Monday to do it all over again.

I'm actually pretty impressed with my social calendar as of late as well. Must mean winter's over and I can finally come out of hibernation mode ;) Two weeks in a row of 210 VIP, followed by a crazy good paleo dinner / NOAN outing, rock band evening, and then BR 1138 in Vegas.

Looking forward then to "the birthday" next weekend, LA area outing the weekend after that, then back to Vegas to celebrate (finally) the engagement of two great friends. After that, who knows. Oh yea, that's right, FMP and NSC, that's what's after that! This summer is looking to be great.

Love hate relationship with blogging

It's one of those times again were I go through the evaluation of "is it really worth it to keep up my blog?". To give some perspective, I read anywhere from 5-10 blogs daily. Most are technical blogs, a couple are just fun blogs, and then the two or so web comics that give me a little chuckle. The difference between them and me? Well two-fold and related. People read their content, and they have content worth reading. I'm not sure how much of it is original content, or how much is just regurgitated from other blogs /work / school, etc.. Wherever it's coming from, I enjoy reading it, but them I'm left with little to say for myself.

With the frequency that people blog, I sometimes wonder how they have time to blog, do the thing they're blogging about, and do things that have nothing to do with blogging (work, sleep, eat). This all comes around to my poor personal time management skills and then maybe reflecting them on others.

I'm curious how people manage their own time. I don't suppose this is something that is explicitly taught by parents, maybe it is. I know they're quite a few books on the subject, but reading one, rather even picking the right one, seems like it would take even more of an investment in the time I already feel like I don't have.

I guess my biggest problem is that I'm just plain ol' lazy. I should really admit that right out front. After I get done with work, get done with the gym, and figure out what I'm planning on eating over the next 10 hours or do, I don't feel like doing much else. Watch a little tv, stare at the computer screen deciding if there's something else worth staring at, things like that. I'd like to say that I will watch less TV, but I know that's not about to happen. It's far too entertaining and easy to do for me to stop. But I do think I can try to watch less "spontaneous" tv.

I know this was a random, unorganized blog, but typing it out at least helps me. Too bad I can erase before I post. There's some funny stuff in the liner notes.

Not enough hours? Or too much to do?

I've lately fallen into this trap of thinking that there's just not enough time in the day to get the things done that I want to get done. Currently my list of things I like to do are as follows:

• TV, around 6-10 hours a week (including news)
  
• Crossfit, around 1 hour a day (not including recovery)
• Kickball, 1-2 hours each Monday
• 8-ball, 2-3 hours each Thursday
• Work, about 40 hours a week
• Sleep, optimistically 56 hours a week
  

On top of this, I would like to go out weekends, get my laundry done, clean the house, prepare meals at home (instead of eat out), and a bunch of other projects that come and go.

I'm wondering then if it's unreasonable to try to be a salsa-dancing, israeli-folk dancing, pool playing, tv watching, gym going, kickball playing, working, cow roping, social butterfly. For me at least it's really unreasonable, considering if I do choose to do something, I'll obsess until it's perfect. Then again, I could just realize that all of these "extra things" that I want to do, don't have to be done now. Sure they're available now, but I don't have to dive in right now. I'm glad this doesn't extend into my shopping habits. I'd be the most impulsive shopper anyone's ever known...

Tonight I feel like some chili...

"You know how you can make anything suck? ..."

"... Add a 400m run to it"

Today was my second appearance at the fmp class. I'm way glad that I went, however it was way hard. Lots of running this time. First was 3x800m runs, then it ended with 3x400m runs, with other things tucked in there. The other pushups and pullups would have been fine on their own, but adding that little run in there just turned it into a terrible idea. The good news is everything got finished and it only took around an hour and a half to finish the whole ordeal.

After the class, it seemed a good idea to go for a ride aroun town. I met up with Morgan to start our ride but I was entirely too wiped out to actually go on the ride right away. So we hung out admiring his pocket bike for a little while. Those things are so rad, I might even get one for myself. We decided to go out on our ride, but the genious locked his keys in the house with no access to the house, garage, or his car. After spending 30 minutes or so looking for a spare key, we found an unlocked window and he was able to break into his own house.

Then began our ride. Man it was windy. I wasn't even sure I'd be able to make it around safely being blown around. There's a positive twist to this story though. Since I've lost quite a bit of weight and whatnot since last season, my jacket is way loose on me. A great problem to have, but unfortunately it acted like a windsail when trying to navigate the roads. We didn't end up making it the whole way to VC then, half because of the wind, and half because of the sheriff we ran into who was posed to follow us the whole way to keep us in line. On our way back to town, we stopped at michael's to check out some gear to see what my new size might be. I found a jacket that I really like, now to just find it at the price that I like.

Now to the only reason that I'm actually posting this blog. Especially at 1:30 am on a Saturday. Either the night went well, or it didn't. Either way it was eventful enough for me to have something to say about it. I wasn't planning on going out, but I had already said I wanted to, and a VIP table at a nightclub isn't something to easily pass up. All in all it was a really good night. The two downsides are I cheated a bit, one shot of Southern Comfort and two drinks of Absinthe. The other downside is I ended up on great terms with two women and both of which had boyfriends.

This brings me to my next point. We joked around on our birthright trip that if Oranim was meant as a sort of Jewish hookup birthright trip (of sorts), then there should be serious preference given to single men and women on the trip, waitlisting all of those people with "someone back home". Unfortunately this wasn't the case on the trip leaving about 18 single guys and maybe 4-5 single women on our trip. Not the best odds if you asked us. Fast forward to tonight. I wish there was some sort of nightclub where if a women walks up to you and starts genuine conversation, you already know that she's available. Twice tonight I got into non-trivial conversation, only at the (self-imposed) end of the evening did it even come up that they weren't available. Totally a "Boyfriend" moment. I know that it's not the end of the world of course, but it is annoying to say the least.

That's only the downside. On the upside, I got to meet two very interesting women, and I'm glad I had the opportunity. I felt great over the evening, getting plenty of compliments on my appearance, a first for me. At least the unprompted compliments. All that's left to do is sleep and get ready for tomorrow. It's snowing quite a bit down here, and I'm hoping that tomorrow there will be plenty left on the mountain for snowboarding down on. Finally a chance to get rid of those mt rose tickets burning a hole in my pocket.

This is why I crossfit (Part 1)

I say part one, only because it's tentatively part one. There are so many reasons why I enjoy crossfit, but there are very few that really stick out.

My first reason is the people. I know plenty of friends in dead end jobs, slaving to pay bills, and I'm not even talking recently. The only thing (besides the paycheck) that keeps them coming back is the people. The crowd of people you chose to surround yourself with makes all the difference in the world. When I was a member of a larger chain gym, there was certainly a crowd of people around me. It wasn't ever a problem to get a machine, or find the weights I wanted. It was a problem to find the motivation I needed. People surrounding me with their headphones on and trying their hardest to at least "look in the zone" aren't the most effective motivating factor for me.

Fast forward to cross fit. Not a single workout has gone by where I felt like I was the only one. I've been last quite a few times, but I was never the only one there. There's always a crowd of people working it out with you, cheering you on. I work harder here not to let myself down, but not to let everyone else down either. You can feel it even more when there's a team workout. Partner pushups were not the most thrilling workout I've ever done. With someone in front of you, relying on you relying on them, it's hard to say no to just "one more pushup".

This all came to me this morning when I read a post on another cross fit blog. I just started my journey on kipping pullups. It's slow going. Soon I'll be better, and maybe even I'll have the mental and physical ability to do more and more, even a strict from time to time. The one thing I do know though is if I start to slow down, there's someone to talk to me and keep me going. I know if I start to suffer and stop, there's someone to do it with me and show me it's possible. Most importantly, I know if I physically collapse, there's someone to pick me up and carry me to the end.

I cheated... and it was good

Well, it's officially day 16 of the challenge and as of noon yesterday, I cheated on the paleo challenge. Technically again a bit earlier, but I don't want to talk about it. Sob story short, I have inherited a condo in Vegas and this past week I got a phone call that the toilets in the condo started flooding into the basement. They caught it, and luckily I'm on the first floor, so no damage to anyone below me. The bad thing is, well, my freaking toilets flooded.

I had told the maintenance plumber earlier that I needed him to look at them and hopefully turn them off. He was going to look into it, found the issue, but never did the turning off that I wanted. Then this happens. The good thing is he was around to go in and fix the toilets from flooding, cut off the supply lines completely, and mop up a bit. Now I need new toilets and plumbing, no real surprise. Still I ended up going down south this past weekend to asses everything and take care of more work that is desperately needed down there. Two carloads full of donations, two trashcans full of trash, and one carload of stuff returning to Reno was the work I was able to get done during my one Saturday there. I also took a good set of pictures so I can keep in mind the things I still need to get done when I go back.

On the way down to Vegas, I stopped in Tonopah. More specifically I stopped at the McDonalds in Tonopah. Quite honestly I had that cheeseburger and fries out of anger and stress, but it's no excuse. On the plus side, the McDonalds there is terrible anyway, and so eating there gave me no pleasure whatsoever and I'm not expecting to do that any time soon.

In Vegas on Saturday after I turned in the last of my donations, I stopped by the cemetery to say hi to the folks. That got my spirits up a little bit, enough to google and find a crossfit gym schedule in Vegas I could sit in on. Lucky for me, there was one just on my side of the world and class started within the hour. I got in the car and headed right over. From the get go everyone there was great. The trainers were cool, people inviting, everything I started doing crossfit for really. The wod for the day was ridiculous, and I didn't end up finishing, but I got just enough of the high that I came to love from xfit, that I went right to the store and picked me up some grapes, pistacios, and bell peppers. So on the way home Sunday, I drove right past that McDonalds and it felt good. Sore, but good.

Then yesterday. I'm still in a good mood, and Mondays are Pho days, my good mood food. So I made myself a mental exception and let myself have some Pho. I have to say, it was really good, and not even because I hadn't had it in a while. The meats and portion were better than average for our visits there.

I then missed crossfit last night because we had a double-header kickball game and I got plenty of running and agility work for myself. No excuses today though, I'll be there right on time for my 6pm high. Can't wait.

It's official, Eating α 1/ (Physical Activity)

Read: Eating is inversely proportional to physical activity

I haven't been to the gym in a few days, and it's not likely to change in the next couple. I'm so angry I can convince myself of that, and slightly agitated that it's reasonably accurate. Tuesday I needed to go to the store (Costco) to get movie tickets for a work movie night. I also took the opportunity to buy some food to prepare meals from (my stew). Between the store and stew, I talked myself out of it.

Wednesday I left work early for a work lunch, and then shortly after went to said movie night. This means I worked less hours Wednesday and thus today I am inclined to stay at work a little later to make up for said hours on Wednesday. Thus two more days missed. Tomorrow I'll likely not be in the mood, although my status quo excuse is not really valid anymore.

Saturday I plan on going back, most definitely for the 9am class, and then Sunday for the FMP. Should be exciting.

I'm only down today because I'm hungry. I mean seriously hungry. It's uncharacteristically hunger I'm talking about. Lunch today consisted of "all you can eat soup and salad" at BJs. Two light vinaigrette salads, three "cup" bowls of tomato soup, and one broccoli cheddar later, I'm way hungry and it sucks.

I was almost ready to cheat this morning too. It's been 11 days so far since I started and today (besides day 2) is the day I was seriously considering it. Today it would have been for a philly cheese steak sandwich and some fries. I'm sort of glad that I didn't. I did end up bending a little bit with the cheddar soup and the vinaigrette dressing. I've never had the dressing before, it tastes like the juice of cherry cordials. In other words, like heaven. I love cherry cordials.

I think tonight I'll have to dust off the Wii fit and substitute some of that for some cross fit. Try to cram as much as I can. Might even be able to find some xfittish routine in the options, hopefully unlock something.

On the plus side, Wednesday I left early enough that after "dinner" I went home and got to ride my motorcycle. Mostly because the addiction is making me twitch, but also economical. Our dinner was closer home than near the theater, so making that trip twice in a day in the car is not something my wallet enjoys me doing. I can't wait until summer.

Dinner of champions

Today, one word rang through my head, constantly, and that word was "stew". I'm not sure why I had stew on the brain. Could be the smell of Stan's stew after lunch. Could be me fantasizing about how I'd like to eat my first potato after my paleo challenge is over. Stew just seemed like a logical conclusion. To top it off, I haven't ever actually made "a stew of my own".

I thus present to you my very first stew, and a paleo friendly stew at that. The main ingredients are:

• Stew beef chunks (3#)
  
• Onion (2 medium)
• Green zuccini (2 regular I guess)
• Diced tomatoes (2 cans)
  
• Cilantro
• Carrots
• Jalapenos
• Red Peppers
• "Italian seasoning - salt free"
• Cayenne pepper
• Other stuff I'm likely forgetting

All in all it turned out okay for only cooking a total of 2 hours or so. My plan is to leave it on low overnight to let it all juice up and then put it in some tupperware in the morning. My only immediate criticisms are the meat is a little too tough, hopefully that will be remedied in the morning. The carrots are way crunchy, again should be more than solved in the morning. The jalapenos and onions have lost most if not all their flavor and only provide a crunch. That's probably just because it's all been incorporated into the conglomerate flavor that is "stew".

I feel kippy, oh so kippy

This past weekend, two very important things happened. First daylight savings time tricked me once again. I completely forgot that it was an hour in the other direction, so when I woke up at 11:30 am, I was in quite a shock. Sleeping for over 10 hours was not in my plan. I completely missed my Sunday workout and my Sunday swim that I was looking forward to. On the plus side, all my colors are folded and the whites are sitting clean in the dryer. Still no word on the mess covering the rest of my room.

The second thing that happened is I did my very first unassisted pull-up. While not a standard pull up, exciting nonetheless. This was Saturday morning while getting pumped up for my first FMP, just like I said I was going to do! During the calm before the FMP, I decided I was going to try a kipping pull up. The only thing I did differently is I told everyone that I was going to do it. That and it's been almost two weeks since I tried last. Once I got the right swing, I just gave a good pull and up I went, chin well enough over the bar for me to be happy. Up at the top the only thing I could think of was "push away from the bar, don't you dare slam your chin on it". Once clear of the bar, I let go falling right to the ground, stunned. The classmates around me let out a sweet little cheer, I'm glad my first didn't go unnoticed.

My first comment was, "Man, I bet I probably couldn't do another one of those..." A voice from behind me came out, "Why not?" That was enough for me. I got back up on the bar and yet another one came out, just as easy as the first. "Well, there's no way I could do more than one in a row..." "Why not?" ... I got right back up, One, Two Three. "Holy shit, my first pull up, not only that, my first pull up was five pull ups. Hot damn"

Of course this means now during the warm-up pull ups, I'll be required, by myself if not my peers, to keep up those "kippers" and perhaps resort to some bandage when the wod includes a gazillion pull ups. I won't mind though. That's what the hell I started coming to this gym for. It's little victories that keep me coming back again and again. To top it off, I'm thankful that there's a good group of people around to share these little victories with, both mine and theirs.

The beast goes by many names

"The infection", "The voice snatcher", "Harold's whooping cough". No one knows its true name, form, or source. All that is known is when it comes, and trust me it will, it shows no mercy to those in its path. It starts as a small tickle in the throat upon waking. That's the first clue. Next comes the mild headache and general tiredness. Then the main course, three damn weeks of coughing non-stop. Finally the coup-de-gras, another three weeks without a voice. The upside for me during the whole experience, I usually don't feel all that bad during the whole thing. The initial throat tickle isn't fun, and the ab workout from the coughing is less than ideal, but it's not anything that can prevent me from doing any of my day-to-day. The one thing that does prevent me from my day-to-day is the constant complaining of people around me. Apparently the cough does annoy people around me.

I bring this up because this winter, I not have officially started my fourth round of this great little sickness of mine. First was after the very first chill of the winter this year, sometime early November. That didn't last too long, maybe a week and a half. Next came just before my trip to Israel. In fact, my preparation for my trip to Israel included massive vitamins, and trips to the gym to keep up my body so I wouldn't be sick in Israel. That ended just after the New Year, a good week before my trip. In Israel, my best friend followed me and struck four days before my trip ended, causing me to return on my scheduled flight rather than taking a few extra days to enjoy Israel for myself. That bout was fun, it lasted the full 3-4 weeks. It even got to the point where I was politely asked to stay home for a couple of days.

Now marks the beginning of my fourth bout, arguably much more tame than before, but not nonexistant. My plan is to still keep going to the gym because it somehow keeps the deamons at bay. Also keep up my daily airborne dose. This weekend will be spent at home mostly as well, besides two trips to the gym and one trip to a Hillel event. Hopefully the bed rest and indoors will help things along as well. The worst so far was this afternoon at work. I'm not sure what kicked it off, but at around 3:30 I just had some random coughing fit. By 4 I just had to leave to avoid the accusing eyes of those around me.

Barbara is a whore

My apologies to the millions of Barbara's out there, sans the one the aforementioned crossfit workout is named for. The kicker is I was part of the group that only completed three rounds of the workout rather than the prescribed full five rounds. Even still it took just over half an hour to complete. This of course was after I decided to waste about 24 of my good pullups, situps, etc. on my warm up for the day.

For those observant out there, you might also realize that it's almost a full day since we did the workout. The worst part about the workout has to be the pushups. By now I'm actually enjoying my "almost self-sustaining" pullups. Situps don't leave me sore for days, and historically haven't. Squats have lost their debilitating effect since the marathon session of 250 followed by other weighted squats and whatnot. Pushups however leave me sore for days. I can't cross my arms in front of myself without feeling like my chest is going to 'asplode. It's pain.

Good news is I get to take the next two days off. I'm going to need the rest if I'm planning on joining on Saturday's fun. Saturdays usually have a grueling workout planned called FMP, Full Mission Profile. These workouts are usually modelled after real life situations, and are much more intense than the regular wod. An example is the Predator FMP, a mission to retrieve downed military property from enemy territory. I'm not sure what this weekend will bring, but if I even try to go through with it, let alone actually "complete" it, I'll be super proud of myself.

Aside from the physical, the diet has been progressively easier. Must mean I'm doing it wrong. Apparently fruit, while allowed, is only supposed to be on a one serving per day sort of basis, and on top of that only before / after a wod to give / replenish energy. Well, I'm not sure I like that a whole lot, especially since grapes have now become my best friend. The crunch of a carrot, followed by the sweet of a grape, I can almost pretend I'm eating real snack food.

Lunch by far is the most difficult meal of the day to prepare for. I'm almost ready to call it quits on finding a place to eat out and get a somewhat paleo meal. Lunch today was the first meal I ate out since starting, and at that it was a chicken salad. The "cheating" items were a little bit of cheese and the likely amount of salt in the salsa I substituted for dressing. On the plus side, it was very tasty.

Dinners are easy by contrast. Just cook up some bit of meat, prepare a veggie to go on the side, and viola, dinner. Follow it up with a handful of nuts and my dried cran-strawberry, and I've got the perfect sweet, semi-salty finish up to the day. Funny considering I got the "unsalted pistachios". Still taste a bit salty if you ask me.

Breakfasts aren't a problem considering I usually end up skipping the meal. Today I even considered waking up early to make myself something, just to change it up. I went to bed early, even got up pretty early too. Then my tired body just decided to lay down and let sleep take me back to my normal wake up time.

I've started highlighting the foods in the "eat" and "don't eat" section of my book just so I can build a mental list of things I like and what section they're in. Given this list, I'll start expanding my repertoire of food items I'm able to prepare. Just a mental note on my part.

Computer science, instant gratification, and when they don't show up at work

The one thing that I always loved about computer science is the "build and run" gratification that you get. Sure it takes a while to code perhaps, but you can see most of the time how this piece is going to fit into the thing you're trying to build. And once you have a piece done, compile and run. Get a simple answer, it will run or some semi-colon is missing. The part you wrote is either now present in the program, or causes the program to freeze.

Historically that was the case anyway. Now that the project are bigger and more complex, things get more interesting. Lets say you wrote this piece of code, and yes it did work, and everything was fine. Well one day, some person decided to run your piece of code while eating a blueberry muffin. This person usually prefers cantaloupe, but today was a treat. All of a sudden because of this seemingly unrelated coincidence, the power goes out for the entire neighborhood. Those are the fun bugs to find. And no, my software hasn't caused a blackout, yet.

I can appreciate bugs that have some sort of cascading effect. Those are sometimes even cool to watch. These are the bugs where a beaver chips a tooth, which causes a log to be cut incorrectly, causing the damn to fail, flooding a campsite, and that's why your boots outside the the campsite are soaking wet (true story, got the tooth to prove it). Bugs like these have sort of a long path to follow, they're mostly straight forward, and it's relatively obvious where one leads to the next.

Bugs that I will not stand for are bugs that just hop along causing all their ruckus at the end. It's like a tick in the yard that jumped on a dog, then on the cat that the dog chased, then on the floor, that you stepped near to get infected with something bad. The cause of the result just got passed around and there's less of a evidence path to follow when finding where you might have a "tick colony" or something.

Which leads me to our nice bug today. Apparently while running our software, you can run someone else's software. We have a dialog that says you shouldn't do that, but computer users don't like to read dialogs, me included. Well, while running these two unrelated pieces of software, after closing their software, the subdirectories in our software's directory all get renamed. To make this even more fun, it only does this after running a specific portion of our software. This portion is specific, but large. We can narrow it down, but to run each test scenario takes upwards of 30-40 minutes to get the answer.

Thus mixing my two least favorite items, devious bugs and non-instant gratification. Today was a long day...

Why does a challenge have to be difficult?

As of 1pm today, I was prepared to commit paleo suicide. Yes, it's not even through day 2 all I can think about is a damn hamburger with fries. Man does that sound so good. The hard thing right now is finding something that feels filling, besides physical activity. A cruel irony if you ask me. If I'm actively doing something, then I can stand the light foods, even no food, which is actually really bad. I can't help it, if I'm doing something physical, then I don't need the "bad" foods. The flip side to this though is if I'm not being particularly active, lets say maybe for 8 hours a day while I'm sitting at work in front of the computer, then the lighter paleo foods are not filling what-so-ever. Gram for gram, if I ate a simple hamburger with katsup, 2 pickles, a leaf of letuce, onion, and a BUN, I would be plenty satisfied. I've probably eaten twice that in carrots, celery, apples and oranges and I'm having a hard time feeling satisfied.

On the plus side, since sleep is part of this whole challenge, and since last night's baseline workout of "Fight gone bad" (google it, seriously) basically kicked my ass, I slept like a baby. Went to bed around 11:30 pm and stayed that way until naturally waking up (no alarm) at around 6am, then just dozing until around 7:30 or so.

One more thing, it has come to my attention that this challenge also include a prize to be won. As if looking and feeling great isn't good enough. The person that makes the most progress in fgb, does the best in fgb, sticks to the paleo logs / diet, sleeps more, loses inches, gains inches, loses pounds, whatever, gets a little vacation getaway south of the border. While this isn't something that I'm particularly excited about, I am certainly interested in "winning", and that means against other people not just myself. :P

Paleo Challenge - Day 1

I wasn't planning on starting the whole challenge. In fact, last week I had already sort of gave in considering I absolutely love quite a few of the foods on the no-no list. Most notably, this is going to be hard without: cheese, potatoes, pho (noodles), the random sweet, tacos, and just about every other food I'm accustomed to just spontaneously eating. To top it off, I recently went on a shopping run to get a stockpile of these illicit items.

After work today, l was actually planning on going straight home, then it changed to stopping off at Barnes & Noble to look at some Mac related literature. Then came the decision to turn left to the BN, or right to crossfit. I'm guessing you now what happened next. To my pleasant surprise, my partner in crime Lynn was there to join in on the fun. Kumar and Devan were sadly absent. Kumar even talked to me at work today asking if I was interested in the challenge, and also joking how the paleo diet for a vegearian could very well kill you... Way to look on the positive side.

The paleo challenge is designed as follows. It's a 90 day long event where each participant is to keep a log of foods eaten, workouts completed, sleep gotten, and feelings felt. There's a log book that it's all supposed to go in, and weekly we'll post our progress on the main gym blog. Every three weeks, there's a baseline workout that we'll do, we'll weigh in, measure up, and perhaps take and post photos to track our progress.

Most everything I'm planning on keeping track of in my little log book, but as for the feelings part, I plan on just incorporating them here and maybe put the important bullet points in the log book. So far, I haven't gotten much sleep... the challenge only started today :P. I'm hoping to get to bed early today though. I woke up feeling a little on the sickish side, but as always after a good workout I'm feelin' fine. Keeping on my gym schedule is just about the only thing that I think will help keep me on my eating schedule. At least for my dinners anyway, lunches and "breakfast" I'll just have to keep the workout in mind. Just as a disclaimer as well, I already feel pretty darn good just including crossfit in my routine without changing / monitoring diet and sleep. I've got relatively high hopes for the 90 days if I can stick to it. BUT... I have relatively low hopes for the period of time after this "challenge". I'm not particularly good at open-ended goals, but a 90-day goal, I can keep that in mind.

I'll keep me posted.

Facebook, Schmasebook + Crossfit

I get into the good habit of posting things relatively regularly, but have the unfortunate side-effect of liking this posting method and not having a way to distribute to anyone of consequence. So now I'm able to post my ramblings on blogger, and have them magically show up in facebook through the magic of facebook, notes, rss import thingymajig. I guess that's pretty positive

Here's a recent conundrum of mine. I'm getting pretty good at this regularly scheduled gym thing. Cross-fit is hella fun, the people are most excellent, and it seems like a good idea. I'm feeling better generally and I have the soreness to prove it. The one stumbling block for me now is I know that if I don't make some sort of effort to control my nutrition, then it's almost in vain. Not totally, but it seems like I'm only selling myself short at that point.

My paradox is that over the summer I started riding a motorcycle, yay. It's just about the most entertaining activity that I've taken part of and the closest thing to an addiction that I've ever felt. As part of that I made the conscious decision that instead of the normal 1-drink, 1-hour rule for driving, when I'm riding my motorcycle or potentially riding, it's more like 1-drink, 12-hours. And you know what, I haven't budged an inch. I've been to plenty of parties with friends, out socially, everything and not drinking, knowing that I get the satisfaction of riding, there's no problem.

Now extend my thinking to working out. I know that working out, eating right and everything go hand in hand. So if I want to be able to improve more in my workouts and fitness, I know that I should make better decisions on what I eat. The biggest problem for me then I guess is that I don't get such an immediate gratification for the work. Choosing not to drink for 12 hours, I know for a fact then when I'm going to be able to ride my motorcycle. Choosing not to have that cookie, or piece of candy from that huge basket they just put out at work... Well that's not a 12 hour payoff, or a 12 day payoff for that matter. If I'm lucky, 12 weeks of staying away from that candy basket will have made some sort of difference.

I'm not that patient, at least not when it comes to myself. If I want to do something, I'll go for the route that promises the most immediate gratification possible without sacrificing any of my original goals, within compromise of course. It just makes it that much more frustrating. The one motivating factor that I still have is the gym that I go to and the people there that I am fortunate enough to train with. Their motivation is my motivation, and trust me, they're damn motivated. There's a guy there, 30+ pushup / situp combo, after fatigue, in under 40 seconds. He's almost twice my age and looks way great. Plus the women that show up to train aren't eyesores themselves, but it's rude to stare ;)

There's a little challenge that's coming up for the next month, a little motivator if you will. The whole details of which haven't been announced yet, but I'm just a little more than interested to join in on the fun. I think giving myself a nice reasonable 30 day goal will be much more to my style than some indefinite goal off in the distance.

It's wel past my bedtime, so toodles.

Weekend activities

I have to say I enjoyed this past weekend very much. I had something to do the whole time, regardless if I was actually doing the thing I was planning to do at that time. The only real change of plan was my Sunday morning. I was planning on getting a little snowboarding fun in during the morning and come home during the afternoon to clean up a little bit and the sit down for an Oscar party even planned for our place.

Well, I ended up going out to enjoy a VIP booth at a local nightclub Saturday night, so sleeping ended up being the morning activity, followed by laundry, more Cocoa book learning, and the the Oscars.

I don't like to go out for evenings often, especially during the winter. But if I do end up going out, I must say it's much more fun if you do it right. Sure it's more than the typical $20 cover charge + $8 per drink, but it's sure worth it to be treated like the VIP I am. I couldn't see myself doing this often, but I can definitely see myself doing this again.

I didn't end up leaving until around 2am to go home, at which point I got a second wind of not being tired, so I stayed up a little while, being the cs kid I am, and knocked out a couple more chapters of my intro to Cocoa book.

Sunday was filled with much of the same, laundry - cocoa - laundry - cocoa - groceries - cocoa - cook for oscars - oscars preshow - cocoa - oscars. The highlight of the evening was Slumdog Millionaire taking the cake as far as I'm concerned. I'm a huge fan of the movie, and picked it to win all the way on our little pool, and I was right for 8/9 nominations. It was a suprise to my friends who haven't seen it, and an even bigger suprise to my friends that had. Apparently they didn't think the move was "all that". All in all, I won a bit of money to pick something I enjoyed and stick behind it 100%. It's not some epic "moral of the story" or anything, but it's something.

Today, I moved

We played a bit of musical chairs in the office today. Interestingly enough, I ended up with one of the most visible cubes in the whole office. To make it more interesting, the person who was in this cube was quite the popular fella, so today was filled with "oh, you're here now? Well that will take some getting used to... ".

The downer parts of the move: my cabinet door opens above the cabinet instead of into the cabinet, so I can't really count on being able to keep things on top of the cabinet like I used to. The keyboard tray in the new cube is slightly smaller, so my mouse is on a different level than the keyboard. I'm in a very public place, I see everyone walk by and vice versa. The founder / "boss dude"'s office is right in front of me, along with the rest of the C<>O's and their offices lining the wall. Plus now I have a window to another cube to my back. That's probably the weirdest part. I have no one looking over my shoulder, but I sure as hell could have someone stalking me through the glass. I miss the privacy.

There's a couple sips of lemonade though. The cube was much brighter when I first moved in. That just took unscrewing a couple of the light bulbs above my cube. Problem solved. The cube also has a bookshelf inside of it, taking up more space that I'd really like. But since I can't readily keep anything in my cabinet anymore, the bookshelf works famously. Lemonade from Lemons. The desks were arranged so I faced away from the entrance of my cube. I really didn't like this because then people coming up to me couldn't easily get my attention. A few stripped screws later, the desks are arranged "correctly". Crisis averted.

The intent of the shuffle is to get some of the teams that work together to sit closer together. AT least that's what the end result looks like. The architecture / engine people all sit together, closer to the embedded (dos) programmers. The UI team is all sitting in a pretty little row. The "new super secret project" people are also all sitting in an area together as well.

The only part of the move that was inconvenient was the not announcing it. I sort of just came into work today and that was the big part of the morning for me, moving the horde of computers and misc stuff. Everything seems to be in place now though. It's still never home, but it'll do.

Today is day one!

So I decided to take the plunge and get into some Mac OS X. My first stop as always was Barnes and Noble to get a book to learn from. I decided to pay the "now tax" instead of getting the book online. I'm usually pretty impulsive like that. I also got another book just for fun.

So far in an afternoon, I've made it through five and a half chapters. Objective C is quite a different language than the C# that I'm used to. The cool thing is I sort of get it. By no means do I know anything, but I'm always curious about parallel programming and recently I started reading about Erlang. The only reason I bring it up is after browsing the internet about things Erlang, I was more comfortable with the mental state of passing messages to objects rather than calling methods on them. Once you get over that hurdle, and the syntax to boot, it's actually not all that bad.

The one thing that I'm not ready to get completely used to is XCode. It's no visual studio, and I'm not completely comfortable with the debugger yet, but it's only a few hours into my first excursion. I haven't traveled too far from the book's code, but the challenge exercises. The one thing that is very much so missing is the comfortable autocomplete that I'm used to from visual studio. The autocomplete in XCode isn't bad, but the completion keystrokes are quite limited. Only the arrow key or enter seem to complete a word, not space, tab, ;, ), ], or any of the other non-alphanumerics that complete a work THEN insert that character. There is an option to add a "complete" keystroke, but if it's something that you can type after a keyword, then it'll never get inserted. At least that's my initial experience.


So far I've learned how to make interfaces in Interface Builder, this is the part I'm most comfortable with. However I was completely lost when it came to hooking up code to the controls. That's where the book came in and saved the day. Now I can hook up my code to the obvious actions on a control and make buttons work and whatnot. So far I've counted letters in a string, made the computer speak, and generate random numbers. My goal is to get together some of my more recent common C# test applications I've made (color fading, animation, dragging and dropping).

If there's any ideas, I'm willing to entertain them. So far my best idea is to have the computer read you a random joke from the internet somewhere. Not the most interesting, but it's certainly pretty cool.

Harold's code of the day: MyClass *foo = [[MyClass alloc] init];

Harold's cool observation of the day:

In C#, this code will crash:
MyClass foo = null;
int bar = foo.myMethod();


In Objective C, this code will just set bar to 0:
MyClass *foo = nil;
int bar = [foo myMethod];

Makes chaining calls when a potential middle call is NULL so much easier. I don't care if an intermediate step fails, I want to know if the result is kosher. Wish me luck tomorrow!

Hebrew is wierd...

I just had the chance to sit down with a computer that has a Hebrew version of Windows Vista installed. I have to say, it's all damn backwards! I'm not sure what to make of any of it...

Actually it's very dramatic, unfamiliar, but recognizable. It makes me nauseated to look at the screen for too long. Not just the text is from right to left, that I can handle. But the start menu, the clock, the little - [] X in the top is on the other side, everything. I find myself constantly going left, then realizing that I need to go right to click something. Way too many years of built up reflex and intuition.

Bottom line, if I do end up going to Israel, I'll be getting a hebrew keyboard, installing all of the hebrew language files and fonts, I might even let the OS change some of the words. The language can be right to left all it wants, but my applications and by extension my brain will likely never catch on.

Just like every other blog...

... It never gets updated. Shame on me. Actually I have a decent excuse. During my trip to Israel, I decided to keep a journal for the trip, including experiences leading up to the trip and also as a result from the trip. There's quite a lot of good stuff in there, and a large amount that I did miss. Importantly though, my current mental state for each day is somehow captured in my comments. Unfortunately, dates, times, and places are painfully lacking.

Our first day we landed, we spent the night in "Abu Gof"? and got our speech with Momo about Love and Jewish babies. The next day I spent in Jerusalem, at the wall, on the bus, and at the bar. Then we drove to tel aviv to see the place of rabin(?)'s assination, and also a "tel" in jaffa. That night was pretty lame for me, but everyone else enjoyed a stay at the bar across the street in netanya(?). Then a shabbat day lazing around on the beach, and a nightclub at night, I wish I knew the name. Then a trip to Ceasaria and to Tiberius. A trip around golan heights and a battle ready bunker on the north east border. A drive down south with our new soldier friends to the Dead Sea and an evening in the bedouin camp with my newly acquired cough and somberness. Another bus ride to eilat with the malls and club scene #2. A drive up north to mt. masada (awesome) and a jaunt back west to Jerusalem. Friday night at the wall (also amazing) followed by alot of walking because the bus doesn't run on Shabbat. Havdalah in the hotel bomb shelter followed by tearful goodbyes.

There were additional nature hikes, scenic overlooks, inspirational stories, and moments now fleeting into the past. So for everyone interested in how the trip went, to quote the artist Avraham in Tzfat, it was "AaawwweesoooooooOOOOOooomme" (awesome).

Since then, I've just been trying to evaluate all of the things that are tying me to Reno. Definitely my friends here, all of them I consider family. My job, I couldn't imagine working somewhere with people as smart and as real. My "stuff", of which I have entirely too much of. My "obligations" which I've only recently been able to realize that they're all self imposed.

Over the next little while, my goal is to just talk about each of these things and how my perspective on them has become so much more clear.