Sick time, vacation time, personal time. It’s a time off avalanche around here.
Shorthanded at work.
Everyone out all at once.
Tough couple of days.
Author: robertjames1971
I'm wicked tall.
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
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.
Not Today, Hampton Beach
I Don’t Know… I Don’t Want It
Beat…
Adrian Belew and Tony Levin were in King Crimson (the first time) from 1981 through 1984. The two of them have recruited two world class musicians to play the music from that time period once again. On drums they have Danny Carey from Tool. I am not terribly well versed in Tool’s catalog, but what I do know is good and he seems like a good choice to cover for the legendary Bill Bruford. The other new guy… I don’t know.
I should be absolutely stoked for this new band. Adrian Belew is a fantastic guitar player. He’s one of the most innovative, original musicians ever. He’s a giant. Tony Levin is literally as good as a human being can get. Whether it’s on the bass guitar or the Chapman Stick, or any other chunk of wood with strings on it, he’s as good as it gets. He’s one of, possibly THE, most talented musicians on the planet Earth at this time. I’ve seen him live twice, once just before the pandemic hit when he was playing in the last version of King Crimson, and once back in 1988 (or was it 1989?) with Yes spinoff Anderson, Bruford, Wakeman, Howe. I really wanted to see him with Peter Gabriel back in September but we went to Disney World and caught Covid-19 instead.
Belew, Levin, Carey… all people I should be salivating over the chance of seeing them live on stage together. It’s that fourth guy though…
Is Steve Vai one of the most talented guitarists in the history of wood and strings? Yes, that’s a fair statement. Is Steve Vai a musical genius? Yeah, probably. I just… I just don’t really care for his music, that’s all. To me, he’s sort of in the same boat as Joe Satriani. I heard once that he actually took lessons from Joe Satriani at one point. I saw Satriani live once. He opened for Deep Purple. There was no denying his talent. No denying he is an astonishing guitar player. Having said that though, two songs into his set I was completely bored. Enormous talent. Staggering technique. But no actual interesting music. None.
Vai played with David Lee Roth and Whitesnake back in the 80’s. His ability was jaw dropping. His actual music? I’m sorry but it was just boring. It was style over substance in the worst way. That 1981-84 period of King Crimson is very important to me. I am positive that Steve Vai is going to do amazing things with it. I am also sure that I will be bored to tears by all of it.
I honestly feel terrible that I feel this way. I should be giddy with glee over this new band. I’m not. I just can’t. It makes me sad, it really does. My sincere apologies to Misters Belew, Levin, and Carey. And to Mister Vai too. I just can’t get over my preconceptions. I am really sorry.
Cat Day
I’m off work today to take my father to a doctor’s appointment. it gave me a little extra time for cat pics. Just because.
Fascist Free
The best way to improve my community, my whole country, would be to do the same thing the free world did during the second world war. Just remove the fascists. I don’t want it to take a war like it did back then. Let’s give them an island or something. They seem to be okay with their cult leader visiting Jeffrey Epstein’s island so they would likely be fine with a nazi island. Then we let them think they are their own independent country and let them think they are able to sustain themselves, sort of the way many of the southern US states think they can operate without Federal funds that they get from the more liberal states they claim to despise. They can have their marches and their rallies and they can discriminate against anyone who doesn’t look like them and they can treat immigrants poorly (as if there would be any immigrants) and they can treat women like property (as if any women would go there). If they try to leave the island the rest of the free world stops them. If they get too big for their britches we slap them back into place.
Ahh, what a world that would be.
Of course I could never actually condone this because it goes against everything I believe in as far as personal freedoms are concerned. That sucks. I guess I have to stay true to myself. Bummer, eh? Still, a fascist free community would sure be nice, wouldn’t it?
Joe Flaherty
Rest in peace, Joe Flaherty. The SCTV legend who once appeared as Count Floyd to introduce the Rush song, The Weapon.
If you don’t wear your 3D glasses you’ll only see in one half D.
Legend.
Stomach Fun
Two days from now will mark one year and 11 months since my Gastric Bypass Surgery. That 2nd anniversary is right around the corner.
Today I think back to one of the regular check ins I had with the surgeon. I told her that I was having some issues with pain. I would eat something, then a few hours would go by and I would start to get a bad stomach ache. Am I doing something wrong?
No, she said. It’s normal. You’re hungry.
Huh… hungry, eh? That’s it?
Yup, you’re hungry.
Sure enough, when I get that type of stomach pain I have something to eat and it goes away. That’s all well and good except… well… I don’t want to eat. I want to not be hungry. I want to have breakfast and then not have anything else to eat until lunch, then not have anything else to eat until dinner, then not have anything else to eat until a pre-bedtime snack. That’s not how it works though.
Today I started feeling it about 2.5 hours after breakfast. I started feeling it about 20 minutes before my lunch break. I started feeling it again two hours and 50 minutes after lunch. It was probably 45 minutes before dinner. I had to have a snack. It was a small snack and it made me feel better, but not completely better. Now I’m having dinner so that should hopefully fix things for the next few hours.
Like I said though, I don’t want to be tied to food like this. I don’t want to feel hungry. I just want to take advantage of the fact that my bypassed stomach pouch is a little tiny guy and doesn’t require a lot of food to fill it.
I am not complaining. Not even a little bit. I am fine with all of this. I just didn’t expect it and I wish I had another way around it. I don’t though and it’s okay.
Dinner tonight is salmon and it’s delicious. Given all of the grief I used to give my mother when she tried to give us fish for dinner, she would be shocked that I am loving a nice piece of fish tonight. Who even am I?
