Author: robertjames1971

I'm wicked tall.

The Do-Not-Eat List

At most of my weight loss clinic check ins, they ask me if I’ve found any foods that I cannot tolerate. There generally hasn’t been anything other than sugar, and I have never tested eating sugar, I just know that I can’t eat it without getting sick.

My answer to that question is that there are things I’ve had trouble with, but I can usually pin the trouble down on something I did (ate too fast, ate too much, didn’t chew enough) that caused the problem rather than the actual food itself.

There was one item that I was unsure of though. Quinoa. I freakin’ love me some quinoa, but most if not all of the few times I’ve had it in the 1.5 years since the surgery have resulted in nausea and problems with my redesigned stomach. I still wasn’t sure if it was the food or something I did.

Tonight we had quinoa. I only had a couple of little fork-fulls. It didn’t go well. Damn it. I think I officially have one food on the do-not-eat list. There is one food that I think I am unable to tolerate. Quinoa. Shit.

Oh well. We live and we learn and we move on to the next challenge.

Two Years Ago Today

Two years ago today I went to the weight loss clinic for the first time. It was not for an actual appointment of any kind, it was just so they could take my vitals and then have the first appointment later via Zoom.

The vitals they took included my weight. It stands as the heaviest I’ve ever been. Well… I may have gained a little weight between that day and the first actual appointment, which was when they told me to make some dietary changes in order to lose a little weight ahead of my actual weight loss surgery, but it is the heaviest weight I’ve ever actually recorded.

On January 19, 2022 I weighed 452 pounds.

Today? Two years and one gastric bypass surgery later? I stepped on the scale this morning and weighed 213.2 pounds. That’s a difference of 238.8 pounds.

Holy shit.

Granted, I stepped on the scale three days ago and I weighed 209 pounds, so it’s like the theme from The Facts of Life: You take the good, you take the bad. Dig? Just kidding. This is freakin’ amazing. 238 pounds in two years. The last time I actually posted a weigh in was a couple of months ago (November 4, 2023) and I am down about two and a half pounds since then. I call that maintaining, which at this point in the process is very much my goal.

Happy Two-Years-Since-The-First-Check-In day. Celebrate good times, come on!

Pre-Work Day Guitar Playing

I recorded some guitar tracks today! WOOHOO!

I put rhythm guitars on one Quarantine Tunes vol. Seven song. Lots of chunky wah-wah groove. Awesome. Here’s hoping I get to make some time to play a lot this weekend. I have a lot of stuff ready for car vocals too.

Get to work, Robert!

141/365
141/365

Leadership

Bloganuary writing prompt
What makes a good leader?
View all responses

I have no idea. If I knew, I would be a better leader than I am. Granted at work I am only a leader of four people and they are all excellent at their jobs so it makes my job easy. Still, having said that, if I could be better I would be better. 

If I can’t give you something that makes you a good leader, I can give you something that makes you a friggin’ pain in the ass leader. Simple: Don’t micromanage. Ugh, working for a micromanager is infuriating. Seriously. I mean, I don’t know if this is true at all, but it’s what I heard, Jimmy Carter is a great man but he was a shitty President though. Why? Rumor has it he was a bit of a micromanager. If that’s true, it’s got to be the reason why his presidency went down the one-term crapper. 

If you want to be a good leader, don’t be a micromanager. 

The Guitar Pick Journey

A few years ago I went on a journey down the guitar strings rabbit hole, looking for a new brand of strings to play. I eventually settled on one (Stringjoy) and have never looked back.

I think it’s time for a similar voyage, this time searching for new picks. Silly, right? Picks… those little tiny things. How can they make that much of a difference? Well, trust me… they make an epically huge difference.

I put a post on the /guitar subreddit today asking for suggestions. I’ve had over 20 responses in the last hour or so. So many ideas. So many things to try. So epically epic of a journey to undertake.

Bring it on, brothers and sisters!

Morning Cats

Here are pics of the cats that I took before I went out to run an errand before I punched in to work this morning.

Enjoy!

140/365
140/365

I didn’t use Hipstamatic for a change. Isn’t that a nice change of pace? I did use a square crop and an Apple iPhone filter, but no Hipstamatic. What fun!

No Nukes

Bloganuary writing prompt
If you could un-invent something, what would it be?
View all responses

After the political events of the last 8-9 years I would like to say that if I could un-invent anything it would be social media, but if I did that I would never have met my wife (thanks, Myspace.com!) so I’m not going there.

Fascism could sure go for some un-inventing. If I could remove the very concept from history with a Thanos-like snap of my fingers I would, but that’s not where I’m going today.

If I could un-invent something it would be nuclear weapons. Yes that would have made the end of the second world war messier, and it would have changed the entire cold war, possibly for the worse, but there are two scientific breakthroughs from the 20th century that are probably the greatest achievements in human history. One was the moon landing. The other, unfortunately, was the bomb. I would remove the bomb. I would remove that horror from our world. 

I’m on the fence about nuclear power. If we could just figure out a safe way to dispose (or better yet, recycle) the waste I would be fully on board. Let the scientific advancements in nuclear energy go for humanity’s benefit instead of potential destruction, right?

No nukes. Simple.