Keeping up with this thing is hard

This is why I stopped in the first place. I cant seem to write anything for weeks at a time. I guess I am not that interested in it right now. Too many things on my plate? Maybe. Nothing interesting to say? That too. Really though its just a simple lack of intertia. Back when I used to write regularly it was an everyday thing where even if I did not post every day I started something that I could post the next day. It was nice back in those days because I had plenty of down time to sit around and concentrate on things to talk about. Now I am spending my free time doing other things.

Actually, I just do the same things I did back then but a little more of it and find less time to write about it. I work a lot more hours these days than I used to. Not that I like it but I cant remember a week recently that I haven’t put in 45+ hours. I sleep a lot less too. I am up between 6 and 7 almost everyday. And if I am not headed straight to the gym I am usually jumping on the computer checking my email and getting to work. Thankfully, life isn’t all work, I have combated the extra hours with plenty of fun stuff and some very domestic ones as well. Between my usual chill out activities and plenty of stuff with the girl I keep really busy.

I have fallen into a pretty nice little situation with my girl, spending most of our nights together each week. We try to make dinner together at home more than we eat out which has become a lot of fun. It is also a lot of work, finding new recipes, preparing all the ingredients. Totally worth it if you ask me but when you are working til 6 and it takes you forever to prepare dinner you don’t have a lot of time to sit and chill. On a given week I am probably spending only 1 or 2 nights by myself. And those are the only nights are really have time to just sit and do nothing.

On nights like tonight when I am alone and have plenty of time I find myself doing a lot of nothing. Tonight and other nights like it would seem to be the perfect time to write something, yet I rarely do. Instead, I usually end up playing video games, reading books, watching DVDs or TV shows or just messing around on the computer. All things that are great ways to avoid work and give myself a rest away from this laptop of mine.

Still, I am trying and would really like to get that momentum going to write more often. I am writing elsewhere on a group blog and sports message boards. I just need to refocus here so I am not writing once every three weeks.

Been a long time

Just checking if this place is still here. I might start writing again, a little slow while I recover from shoulder surgery but writing none the less.

Haven’t done this in a while

A couple of years ago I was working on the road over St. Patrick’s Day, when it also happened to be the opening weekend of March Madness. At the time I was alone in a hotel room watching games and had a lot of things I wanted to write about but nothing longer than a paragraph or two, so I just wrote about all of them in one monster post. Since, I have not been posting very regularly anyway; I figured why not try that again. So here goes. Feel free to skip to something you like.

 

 

On A Somber Note

I didn’t even realize it until I woke up this morning but it is the 6^th anniversary of 9/11. Granted I have taken a pessimistic view on the subject since day one but it has changed the country and it has resonated for some people for a long time. I prefer to listen to Colin Powell on the subject when he says that terrorism is not the biggest threat we face as a nation because acts of terror will not in themselves change the American way of life. Only we can do that, and hopefully we are strong enough to not let outside stimuli force us into giving up the tenets that we live by. Still, I doubt I will ever forget where I was that day, the way I felt and how the rest of that week unfolded. The mood that day in Gainesville is one that I have felt on very few occasions and it will stick with me for a long time.

 

On a lighter note

September is still my favorite month of the year and 1/3 of the way into it September is living up to the hype. After going for months without much activity in the DC area I have spent plenty of time going out, not making it home at the end of the night and just doing my usual drinking partying that comes with football season. Unfortunately, the Gator bar makes it really hard for me to watch games at all; I mostly just sit around drinking and talking to people until I lose my voice. After Labor Day weekend my voice was completely gone, after the Viking game on Sunday it was only half gone, thankfully the NFL is not all that exciting or I would have been done for.

 

Summer, what happened to you?

I don’t mean that in the sense of where did it go, it was definitely here, it was definitely hot and I did get to enjoy parts of it. No, my question is more about how summer has gone from my favorite time of year to my least. My childhood ranking system looked like this:

1. Summer
2. Summer
3. Summer
4. Summer

 

Adult ranking system

1. Fall
2. Spring
3. Winter
4. Summer

 

How the heck did this happen? I have two theories on the subject. The first being that as I grew up a Floridian the only seasons I knew of were Hot, Hotter, Hurricane and rain at 4. The second theory is what I like to call Summer Camp syndrome. To this day I will bump into people who will bust straight into summer camp talk. It happened on Saturday, it happens all the time, and the conversations are always the same, people talk about what camp they attended and what cabins they were in and then begin playing the name game. But, that has nothing to do with my theory, at least not directly, no; Summer time without summer camp is simply hot, rainy and bad TV. But Summer time with summer camp is the outdoors, new friends, lakes and kickball and if you go on to be a camp counselor it also means remote locations and drunken nights. Every June I seriously consider quitting my job to go work at sleep away camp, but every time I realize its not the best idea and decide to suffer through another boring summer with bad TV, bad weather and bad movies.

 

I am a bit of an introvert

I think I have always known that to be true, though I am not sure people who know me understand. So if you care, read this little article that I stumbled upon. I am not as bad as the description it gives but there are some definite similarities. I don’t consider myself anti-social as I do need social interaction as well as time alone but I definitely get that feeling sometimes of being overwhelmed by too much face time. This summer when I spent 5 of 6 weekends out of town either visiting family or working I was constantly with people. When I finally got back to being home for a while all I wanted to do was decompress and spend some time alone. So, I did that until September started.

 

I could keep doing these short things all day but I will stop here

I am going home tomorrow for Rosh Hashana. I have not been back to Florida in six months and I am really looking forward to my trip home. My mom ordered challah and is making homemade chicken soup and brisket and I just can not wait. It has been far too long since she has made me a home cooked meal, so I will forgive her for making me cook as well. I am also really happy that the holiday lines up perfectly with the UF-UT weekend so that my cousin and I can drive up and see our beloved Gators in person. It is sort of becoming a family tradition as we attended the game last year in Knoxville.

 

 

And on that note I am out, maybe I will put up some pictures after the game or something, it has been a long time since I have posted pics. I actually do not think I have put up any pics of myself, maybe I will. I can guarantee that if we barbecue you will see pics of what we eat and probably a bottle of Jim Beam.

I left town and forgot to pack myself

After a crazy day on Thursday where I had to finish a task for work, get a root canal and visit my doctor I packed and headed out of town. Not for anything fun, no, I left town for more work. So, here I am in my hotel room in Newport News, VA getting ready to pack up again and head back home. I really don’t want to pack right now; I didn’t want to pack when I left either, so I did that in a hurry and forgot a ton of things. One of those thing being my normal everyday self. I have not eaten the way I normally do, I have not been functioning the way I normally do, I am just totally off my game here. At night I have found myself driving around aimlessly in hopes of finding something to do only to return to my hotel room and lie in bed reading. Now, the reading thing is not so bad, I have three books with me that are enjoyable. But, when I go two days without so much as turning on a TV I get a little concerned. I have still been working out on this archaic gym equipment that makes me laugh while I am doing my workout, plus this tiny little gym is just full of mirrors, too many mirrors. I like looking at myself when I workout as much as the next guy but it’s a bit much. Plus, the only non mirrored surface of the room is an open view straight to the pool, so people enjoying their weekends, having drinks and going for swim get to watch me sweating my ass off and making funny faces. And even that isn’t really all that bad, but this whole trip has just thrown me off a bit. I am forgetting what day it is, what time it is, being down here these 4 days is just one big blur. Thankfully, there is just one more to go before I can go back home, unfortunately I think I am going out of town again next week, for fun at least but still. When will I ever get back on a routine?

 

 

If anyone has made it this far, wow was that a rant. I am not even sure if it makes sense or it just comes off as crazy man gibberish. As I wrote that last sentence above about craving a routine I remembered a post I wrote back in the early days of my blogging about how much I hate my routine. I believe I called it a prison. And now here I am lamenting that my routine is all out of whack. I wonder if that means I have changed or if I just need a bit more of a balance between the routine and the random? After all isn’t life about balance, moderation, nothing in excess? I’d like to think so and on that note my crazy man rant is done.

Upstarts in a Blowout

Have you ever woken up and just known it was gonna be a bad day? That is exactly how my day went last Thursday. Wednesday night I was supposed to go down to Virginia beach but everyone cancelled so instead I spent the night in my hotel room watching movies and resting up for another day of work. Everyone apparently had decided that Thursday night would be a better night to go to the beach, I did not agree and went to bed with my mind made up not to go the next day. When I awoke the next morning I went to the hotel coffee maker like I had every other morning but this morning I found that no coffee was there to make. Anyone who knows me also knows that I do not handle the lack of coffee very well. Still, I pressed on, began getting ready for work and picked up coffee on my way in to work. But, before I could get too far into my day I realized my sunglasses had gone missing, this time it seems they have been lost for good. With two mishaps so early in the morning I knew there was something left on the horizon but still I had a job to do and I could not let a few setbacks ruin an entire day. When I got to work everything went as usual, I bantered with clients, talked with co-workers, solved a few problems and let everyone know I would not be joining them on their trip to the beach. However, as the day wore on so did my resolve and eventually somehow not only did I get wrangled into going to the beach, I was driving.

 

In anticipation of driving to the beach we all made sure to get off post as fast as possible and by about 4:30 we were all ready to go. My car was full of beach things, one coworker was lying down in the backseat, and another was in the passenger seat resting her eyes. Everything seemed fine and then 2 miles from my hotel I decided to change lanes, a harmless act that I have done countless times. But, this time was not the usual. I hit some debris in the road and immediately heard my left front tire go boom. I instantly knew that Anya had just lost a tire but I was not going to do any more damage and quickly got the car to the side of the road. Of course I was upset but I had to get my car off the small shoulder of the highway. Thankfully, a VDOT truck came up within minutes and offered to change the tire for me as this particular stretch of highway was very unsafe. There had apparently been 5 deaths recently changing tires and I did not want to be number 6. After the donut was on and the car was ready to roll, we got back on the road and returned to the hotel where I took about 20 minutes to collect myself and decide whether or not to take care of the tire or head out to the beach. I called my mom, cracked open a beer, then another beer, then hopped in a car and headed to the beach. All in all, we lost an hour of sunlight, but we did make it and we had a great time.

My morning routine

I think mornings are such an important time that most people overlook. For years and years I overlooked it myself. Going as far back as high school I was always a big time snoozer. Back then I went to a school that started very late compared to others (I also lived across the street) and I became used to being able to sleep in. When I went to college I scheduled my first class after noon, this didn’t help my ability to take advantage of early mornings. Through out the rest of college I would always work my schedule so that I never started a class before 3^rd period. Because of all this I had become conditioned to late nights and late mornings, 10 am was really early for me. When I entered the working world it was a real struggle to get up early and at times being a work from home employee hid that fact. I was able to simply wake up and turn on work, after being work from home I landed on a project that allowed me to stroll in at 10 am, again hiding the fact that I was not an early riser. However, for the past 6 months or so I have been on a project that requires a normal 9 am arrival time. So, I really had to revamp how I prepared for my days.

 

The problem isn’t just that I have a hard time waking up; it’s that I also take a long time to get ready in the mornings. From the time I wake up until I walk out my door it is close to two hours. When I first had to be here early instead of trying to get up earlier I moved some of my morning tasks to the evening. However, that did not last long since I do not get home until late after the gym I was usually tired and wanted nothing to do with food preparation. So, the only logical solution was to begin getting up earlier and becoming better about not snoozing for hours. At first I set my alarm to an hour earlier, but after still being late most days I set it another hour earlier. Needless to say this did not work at all and I would adjust by snoozing over and over until I was ready to get up. Finally, after much trial and error I began getting into bed at a decent time and setting the alarm for about 8 hours later. I still snoozed a little but I am continuously getting better at it. I have decided instead of pushing my alarm to an hour earlier each time I would move back by 15 minutes or so after being able to not snooze and getting sufficient sleep at a later time.

 

So, after months of trying and readjusting I am finally getting in my entire morning routine with time to spare. My alarm goes off at 6:45 am and I rarely snooze, and if I do it is only one time. From there, I usually weigh myself (yes, everyday), then go make my coffee. While the coffee is brewing I will make all my meals for the day at work and hopefully I can finish that by the time the coffee is done. Once, my lunches are packed and ready to go I grab my coffee and begin making breakfast. I do make breakfast every morning and usually sit in the kitchen to eat it with my coffee and something to read. If my computer is on I will read the paper online, if it isn’t I will check baseball scores or the weather on my phone, but most likely I will grab a book. After all of this, usually an hour has past and I will begin getting ready for work. This takes me about 20 – 30 minutes depending on how fast I am moving and how decisive I can be on which combination of work clothes I feel like wearing for that day. This routine usually gets me into the office about 2 hours after I wake up which for me is perfect. Since, most of my tasks get done in the morning when I get home in the evening I have very little to do, so I get all of my unwinding time from 7-10 or whenever I fall asleep. Waking up earlier has literally removed small stresses from my life and even though some mornings it is hard, I can not be happier with the results.

Traveling at the speed of thought

Boy have I really sucked at this blog thing lately. Its not that I don’t want to write or have things to write, actually it is just the opposite. There is a lot of activity, I have very little down time and when I do I want it to be peaceful. Anyway, work has been chaotic, much more than normal anyway as my current project is winding down. Outside of work and my constant trips to the dentist life has been pretty normal for me, I work, go to the gym and head home most nights to watch movies. Occasionally, I will meet up with friends for falafel or drinks or to catch a baseball game. Still, even though mundane there should be things to write about and there are, as a matter of fact I have started numerous posts just to trash them. But, what is the point of doing this if I am not going to post? So, from here on I am going to try posting more. I have been reading a lot and listening to some good music as well as catching up on a ton of movies, so there are definitely things out there to discuss and I will get to them soon. One link I think I am going to add to my blog roll is Zen Habits, not sure how I came across it but its pretty interesting and I think people should check it out. For now that is all but hopefully if anyone is still stopping in here from time to time they will actually have new stuff to read soon.

So much for taking it easy

At some point last week I had vowed to have a nice relaxing weekend, if only I could stick to my original plans for once. What I ended up actually doing was going out everyday, including Sunday. I mean who drinks on Sunday? I do, apparently. Friday did go as planned, I went to see Grindhouse and I thought it was one of the more enjoyable movies I have seen in a while, I definitely recommend it. But, then Saturday was not what I expected at all. After going to the gym nad running some errands I was planning on staying in and resting until my roommates informed me that they were going drinking at RFD. And since RFD has 300 bottled beers and 30 different drafts I could not say no. But, even before I went I told myself I would still be taking it easy, then I drank about 6 pints and getting well drunk. I then rounded out the weekend with the lunch that I wrote about yesterday and followed that up with the DC 101 battle of the bands at Clarendon Grill and a few more pints. Needless to say, work today sucks and I hope I can actually take it easy this weekend like I intended to last weekend.

Bump in the night

If there were a top ten list of reasons I couldn’t live in South Florida the events of last night would be number 1. I had a great time last night, I got very drunk, and I spent a reasonable amount of money doing it at a bar that didn’t suck. But, I was in downtown Ft. Lauderdale and I bumped into so many people from my past. This used to not be a problem, because during college I shaved my head and people didn’t recognize me, but now that I am growing my hair out I look pretty much the same. However, I still do not remember anyone, I am not sure why that is but I never remember any of these peoples names, sometimes I do not recognize them at all. And I suck at bullshit. I talked to one kid that I know is from my fraternity, no idea what his name his, another from camp that introduced himself to me or else I would have had no idea. The best one though was when a guy came up to me and said “Good to see you, blah blah blah.” I answered, and then he looked at me straight in the eyes and said, “You have no idea who I am.” My answer to that was simply “none”. How could I? Someone gave me an Irish car bomb and apparently the drinks were free. Anyway, I did find out who this guy was and talked to him for a little while. Having nights like this once in a while is fine, but if it happened too often I think I would get really sick of it.

Getting hit on by dudes is nothing new

But it happens in the oddest places. I do not know exactly what it is that makes me a gay magnet but it has happened enough over the years that I can no longer view it as random. In high school there was a guy who had a crush on me that was not happy when I turned him down. That led to a few nasty lies spread around and my friends giving me a cute nickname, BGT. You can guess what the initials stand for. Since then I have been hit on by the hairdressers, guys on the street, in Key West, at the gym and just last night after a hyperbaric oxygen treatment. I guess I put myself in places where this may be more common than others like a hyperbaric treatment center and Key West. But, after my early reactions to this which were blatantly homophobic I have changed my tune entirely. Now, I just take it in stride and figure a compliment is a compliment even if it is not from my preferred sex. However, I have not gotten to the point of one of my friends who now lives in LA. His theory is that everyone likes to be flirted with, gay or straight, so he flirts with everyone. It is manipulative as shit but damn if it doesn’t get him free drinks and invites to some pretty good parties. I won’t be going that far but I will graciously take the compliments no matter where they come from.