Author: robertjames1971

I'm wicked tall.

17 Years Ago Today

17 years ago today was a good day. I had met this woman on Myspace (hi, Tom!) and we’d been chatting and emailing for a while. On April 5, 2007 we met in person for the first time. An actual, honest to goodness date. We went to dinner at the Outback Steakhouse in Lowell and then went to a bar nearby and hung out for a while longer. It was a good date.

17 years later and we’re married. Still together. Like I said, it was a good first date.

Happy first-date-aversary, Jen. I love you more than ever.

None?

Daily writing prompt
What job would you do for free?
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If you do it for free is it a job? I think if you are doing it for free then it’s a hobby or a chore, not a job.

I am about to go outside and shovel yesterday’s snow and ice off of the driveway. I’m going to do it for free, but it’s not a job. If I went door to door and did it for the neighbors I would turn it into a job, but there is no way in hell I’d do it for free.

I would play gigs with the band for free, but it’s not a job for me, it’s a hobby. There are people around who do consider bar gigs a job and require the pay they get from those gigs for their living. If I did shows for free I would be taking work away from those people, thus literally taking money out of their pockets and food out of their kids’ mouths. No, I would not do bar gigs with the band for free. I will not screw up the very tenuous economy to indulge my hobby. No.

So is there a job I would do for free? No, I don’t think there is. Sorry, Charlie.

Tales of the Empire Trailer

I was listening to a Star Wars podcast at work today and they were discussing this week’s episodes of The Bad Batch. They were also wondering what was next for Star Wars animation. What’s the next show going to be? Will it be an Omega and Ventris buddy cop show? Will it go back to the High Republic?

No.

Right on queue, Lucasfillm released a trailer for the next animated series. It’s a continuation of Tales of the Jedi called Tales of the Empire. I am already fully on board, like the obsessive fanboy that I am.

Month 23 Weigh In

Robert, if you’re not weighing in monthly anymore, why did you bother doing it on the 23rd monthiversary rather than waiting 30 days and doing it on the two year anniversary? I don’t know, leave me alone.

I walked past the scale yesterday and without thinking about it stepped on it. I was expecting to be around 220 pounds. I was less than that. It pleased me. It made me want to step on the scale today, which is the one year and 11 month mark since my gastric bypass surgery. It made me want to update my weight loss spreadsheet for the first time since January 9, 2024 (which was the two year anniversary of the first appointment at the weight loss clinic). So feeling thusly inspired (is thusly a word?), I stepped on the scale this morning… and I was down from yesterday. I was also down from January 9, 2024. Nice.

The last weigh in, almost three months ago, had me at 213.20 pounds. Today’s weigh in has me at 211.60. I am down 1.6 pounds over the last three months. That pleases me a lot. I thought I would be way up. I’ve actually had to start using a looser notch on my belt. I thought I was putting the weight back on, slowly but surely. Nope. 1.6 pounds over three months, I would say that I am officially maintaining. I’m up 13.2 pounds since I hit my low point, which was while I had Covid. I’d love to be below 200 pounds again, but I am more than happy to be at 211.6. It’s an indescribable improvement over weighing more than 430 pounds the way I did back in April of 2022.

Here are the totals over the last two years or so. I have lost 219.8 pounds since the last weigh in before the surgery. I told my father yesterday that I was at 220. Close enough. I am down 240.4 since the first weigh in. My BMI was 55 on that fateful first weigh in day back in January 2022. Today it is 25.8. That is technically still considered overweight, but given the circumstances, I freakin’ love it.

So there we have it. The current state of the weight loss journey. I plan to weigh in again on the second anniversary of the surgery. That will be May 4, 2024. After that… I might not weigh in again for another year. This was never about the numbers for me. It was always about the way I feel. That and being able to be there for my family, when prior to the surgery I had reached a point where I couldn’t function under normal circumstances. In those terms, this is the most successful healthcare experience of my life. The numbers are fun for the stats geek that I am at heart. For that reason, I’ll keep that weight loss tracking spreadsheet around.

Happy 23 months, everyone.

Olympics

Daily writing prompt
What Olympic sports do you enjoy watching the most?
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What is it about the Olympic Games that makes uninteresting sporting events so riveting that I can’t look away? Track and field events, figure skating, curling, and the queen mother of WTF athletic competitions, biathlon (the one with target shooting crossed with cross country skiing). Take uninteresting sporting competitions, wrap them in the Olympic flag and BAM, I can’t stop watching. Is it hypnosis? Is it some weird brain washing thing? Is it a form of nationalistic propaganda that our brains are hard wired to respond to?

Maybe… or it just might be fun.

There is one Olympic event that I follow pretty religiously. It’s not figure skating, though there was a time in the past where I had a family connection to that sport based on my cousin having dated a super famous US competitor. It’s not soccer either, though it might be in the future as I have a family connection that may or may not be involved with the Olympic development program and may at some point in the distant future end up playing goal for the USA. No, you can probably guess if you read through past posts on this blog. It’s hockey.

Hockey was always the best part of the Winter Olympics, but when the NHL players were allowed to participate, suddenly the Olympic Ice Hockey tournament became the ultimate international competition, featuring literally the best hockey players on Earth. Sure it took a couple of Olympics for the whole thing to start living up to it’s potential, but once it did. Damn, were those games ever fun. Best hockey tournament ever.

Generate an image of a male jedi knight playing ice hockey for team usa with a light saber…

Not Today

I woke up early having every intention of driving in to the office today. I’m supposed to work in the office twice a week (on average) and I’ve only been in once this week. I can’t go tomorrow because I am only working half a day tomorrow and they only want us coming in on full days. So today is my last chance, mathematically speaking.

I got up early, like I said, and looked out the window.

Snow.

A lot of it.

Not like mountains, but enough to convince me to not want to drive 44 miles to the office. I guess I will work three days in the office next week.

Ugh, crud.