Author: robertjames1971

I'm wicked tall.

Cause and Effect

Before work this morning, I went outside and topped off the bird feeders.

302/365
302/365

The full bird feeders lead to this…

And this…

(I hope you enjoy the glimpse into my food tracking spreadsheet. Protein bars for breakfast, as usual)

Habits Again

What are your daily habits?

Daily Writing Prompt

Daily habits. I don’t know if I really had any daily habits prior to the whole weight loss surgery thing. Now I have a bunch of them, mostly due to having all of these post-op goals to hit every day.

  • Have some water and my morning vitamins before breakfast
  • Exercise every morning before breakfast
  • Eat a lot of protein for breakfast
  • Make sure the cats are fed
  • Make the bed (I fail on this one a lot, but I hate it when I do)
  • Exercise again during lunch, just a bit
  • Hit my daily water/liquid intake goal of at least 64 ounces
  • Hit my daily protein goal of at least 80 grams
  • Hit my daily Apple Watch Activity app exercise goal of at least 30 minutes, preferably more like 60
  • Hit my daily Apple Watch Activity app move goal by burning at least 1000 calories
  • Hit my daily Apple Watch Activity app stand goal by standing for at least one minute each hour for 12 hours
  • Write at least one blog post
  • Take at least one photograph, preferably with my Nikon Z5
  • Most important of all, be kind and loving to my wife
  • Track my sleep stats with my Apple Watch
  • Wake up and do it all again

I am sure I am missing a few things. I find the whole exercise and post-op thing a ton easier if I stick to a routine. Like, I overslept by almost two hours this morning and I am worried about staying on target for all of the exercise and food/water goals already. It’s only 7:30am, but I should have a bunch of that stuff done already. It bugs me a bit.

Anyway, those are some daily habits. I may be insane. Just a smidgen.

My response from last year

I’m thinking this is the last time I do this. That’s my theory at the moment. I might change my mind, but this just feels silly now. Not that it ever didn’t feel silly before… it’s just more silly now, and in a more pathetic kind of way.

Co Workers

Lily Pad the cat joined me for one of my conference calls today. She sat on my desk for a couple of minutes. When she walked away her tail was caught on camera. Other than that, no one noticed her.

Robin Sparkles the cat also joined me for work today, but not during any meetings. I was able to snag a couple of photos of her last visit.

There are only 26 minutes left in the work day, so if Lily wants to pose for a work day photo she’d better hurry up and come back.

Backyard Violence Redux

This time it was a chipmunk.

The hawk came back! Or, a different hawk came around. Whichever it was, I was sitting at my desk eating some lunch (a little Purdue chicken patty and a handful of frozen French fries, all heated up in the air fryer) and I heard another bang outside of my window. I looked out and there was the/a Red Tail Hawk. It was holding what was left of a chipmunk. I couldn’t see it clearly through the dirty window screen and with my reading glasses on, but I could see it well enough to notice that a big strip of the little rodent had been removed. Ouch town, population Alvin/Simon/Theodore. There will be no hoola hoop for xmas this year. Yikes!

The hawk sat on the grass in front of my window for just a second or two and then flew off. See you later, bro.

Such violence. Such brutality on display. Hawks are freakin’ awesome!

Backyard Violence

I just saw some backyard wild kingdom violence. Well… it was mostly over by the time I looked outside, but I saw a little of the aftermath.

I have the window open in my home office room. I heard a bang outside followed by lots of angry bird noise. I looked outside and…

…right in front of my window was a hawk standing on the ground eating a fresh kill. I think the fresh kill was a sparrow. It was tough to say. I thought maybe a chipmunk at first but it was definitely a small bird. I reached for my phone to take a picture but the hawk and it’s lunch flew away into the woods.

I guess we’ll have to settle for a cat photo as my photo a day shot.

301/365
301/365

This was taken before the murder. Robin had left by the time the horror went down.

Sleep and Spoilers

I did something I rarely do. I let myself sleep late on a work day. Not too late, but later than usual.

The last few nights I have had the worst sleep. Barely five hours on Sunday and Monday nights. Less than five hours on Tuesday night. I was practically in a coma for much of the day yesterday. I needed sleep so badly.

Last night? Almost seven hours. Still not enough sleep, but so much more than I’ve been getting. Bliss. I usually set an alarm on my watch for 5:00am. Jen has an alarm set for a half an hour after that, but I am usually down cellar exercising before her alarm goes off.

Today? I slept until a little after 6:00. It meant I was running behind throughout my entire morning routine, but it was worth it. I’ll still probably be asleep on my feet by around 7:00pm tonight, but for now? I feel a little better.

Okay then, part two of this post is going to deal with Star Wars: The Acolyte and it is ABSOLUTELY SPOILER FILLED. If you haven’t watched the show, bail out now. I have two stupid comments that are burning a hole in my tiny little brain and I have to get them out and THEY ARE SPOILERS so you have been warned.

Seriously… if you want to watch the show and you haven’t yet, get out now.

You have been warned… again…

Last warning…

Okay. So this is the same comment made twice. Once is me being a snob, the other is me getting mine.

Before the show aired, people online were over the moon about Carrie-Anne Moss playing Jedi Master Indara. People who’ve read the High Republic books and/or comics were all excited about what a bad ass warrior Indara is and how viewers were going to be over the moon at how awesome she is. Also… it’s freakin’ Carrie-Anne Moss. People were foaming at the mouth over having such an awesome actor in the cast.

Episode one… the first scene… Carrie-Anne Moss as Jedi Master Indara in a lightsaber fight. This is it! Here it comes… oh… she’s dead… oh.

I laughed out loud knowing that the internet would be turned on its ear over that scene. People were going to be pissed and it made me happy. Screw your expectations! Take that, know it all book readers! I was just tickled.

Fast forward to episode five. The episode was awesome. They saved up a whole season’s worth of action scenes and threw them all in our face at once. Just fight after fight after fight. It was fantastic. When Jedi Padawan Jecki Lon started fighting our dark side bad guy, the action was incredible. I was watching on my laptop and I thought to myself, if they want to do a spin off show where this kid just fights everyone, I will be totally, 100% on board… oh… she’s dead… oh… I guess that’s what I get for laughing at the Indara fans… Okay… I totally got what was coming to me. Serves me right for being snobby about people being snobby. Lesson learned, Acolyte. Lesson learned.

Okay, the spoilers have ended. You may go on with the rest of your day now. Thanks for letting me get that off my chest. I appreciate your patience.

Sustainability Again

Are there things you try to practice daily to live a more sustainable lifestyle?

Daily Writing Prompt

Right then, let us play this goofy game one more time.

Here is my response to this question from last year:

I’ve only been playing this daily prompt game for a few days, and since jumping on the wagon there haven’t been any questions that required any thought, or made me want to… you know… write anything. Now we have one and the theme is going to be shame.

I am going to have to turn in my hippy membership card after this one because up until recently I haven’t really lived my life in a way that could be in any way considered sustainable. The only exception being driving a car with a hybrid engine. Sometimes. Also, that’s only been a part of my life for a few years now. We have two cars in our household an one is a hybrid. The other… very much isn’t. It gets okay gas mileage but nothing to write home about. I drive a lot and when I am covering any notable distance I drive the hybrid. Other than that…

Until recently I never recycled. I produce what feels like a lot of waste. We order food for delivery more than we should and that always comes with tons of packaging that goes into the trash. Plastic, Styrofoam, the works. Fortunately for the Earth, my city sort of forced recycling upon us not long ago. They instituted automated trash pick up and issued a trash barrel and a recycling barrel to each residence. That put me onto the recycling wagon so when it comes to sustainability, I am pleased with myself for adding that to my personal list, but still disappointed with myself for making it to my 50’s before getting on that particular bus.

So I guess I am doing a couple of things to be sustainable now. I just feel like I should have been doing it a lot longer than I have. I seriously doubt I would make any difference, as my hippy self is often overpowered by my much more insistent cynical self, but as a proud bleeding heart liberal my lack of sustainable habits have always been a major source of hypocrisy.

I’m doing better now though. I will continue to do better in the future. I promise.

Link to last year

And now let’s have Google Gemini write a comment, just for goofy fun:

The writer is grappling with the theme of shame through the lens of sustainability. Here are some points to consider in your comment:

  • Relatable struggle: Many people can identify with the internal conflict between wanting to be eco-friendly and falling short due to convenience or ingrained habits.
  • Humor and self-deprecation: The use of phrases like “turn in my hippy membership card” and “bleeding heart liberal” adds a touch of humor while acknowledging the hypocrisy the writer feels.
  • Progress over perfection: Even though the writer feels they should have started sooner, they acknowledge the positive steps they’ve taken and their commitment to continuing to improve.

You could offer encouragement for their efforts or share your own experiences with sustainable living.

And finally, let’s ask Google Gemini to generate an image based on last year’s post and see what kind of monstrosity it dreams up.

Dark Matter

I just finished watching Dark Matter on AppleTV+. I really enjoyed it.

It’s weird. They ran a show called Constellation that centered on the idea of a multiverse and people swapping between parallel universes. That show was okay but it was a little confusing and they never really spelled out the hows or whys or even the whats. Apparently that show was cancelled after it’s one season.

Almost immediately after Constellation ended, Dark Matter came out. Nine episodes focusing on the idea of the multiverse and people swapping between parallel universes. The difference between the two shows? Simple. Constellation was okay. Dark Matter was excellent. At times it was riveting. Just when you thought you had your brain wrapped around it, BAM so new piece of information that turned everything upside down. It was just really good.

Will there be a season two? I don’t think so. The show was based on a book (and you can bet your sweet ass that the book is on my reading list now) and I believe the entire book was covered. They could always come up with some new issue for our main characters to deal with, but I don’t know. I think we’ve gotten all we’re getting.

If that’s the case and the show is a one and done… then it was really well done and I’m glad I watched it all the way through.

If you like science fiction and good TV, and you have an AppleTV+ subscription… check it out.