Category: Generic

Monday is Okay: So Far

After a tough couple of days, it’s almost 10:00am on Monday morning and everything is okay.

Stomach issues are normal for gastric bypass patients. At least that’s what everyone tells me. Every once in a while I am going to zig when I shoulda zagged and my new little redesigned mini stomach is going to let me know about it. That’s all the last couple of days were.

I’m on vacation today and tomorrow so I slept about an hour late (ahhhh). When I went to sleep yesterday is was feeling okay. No pain but maybe a little gassy discomfort. I didn’t hit my water or protein goals until maybe half an hour before I fell asleep. I feel good about that. I thought I was going to fail on both counts. I did miss my exercise goal and I’m upset with myself over that, but given the circumstances it’s okay.

This morning I woke up without any pain or issues. I was a little nervous that something might crop up, but I did my 30 minute fake jogging in the cellar (pronounced “yogging” with a soft “j”) and I ate a normal protein bar breakfast. It’s been a couple of hours and all is still well.

Is that optimism I’m feeling? Maybe. It might just be me wanting a grilled hamburger and fries for lunch. it could be either one

Background Noise

Daily writing prompt
What do you listen to while you work?
View all responses

When I am working from home I almost always have some audio something or other playing in the background. I think of it more as background noise than anything I am actively listening too. When I am in the office I sometimes try to do the same thing with headphones on but somehow it’s harder for me to do that. I feel like I need to be more aware of what’s going on around me when I’m with my staff. Sometimes I give in and pop in some ear pods and add some background noise.

That’s not the question today though. The question is, what do I listen to? More often than not it’s podcasts. Podcasts recapping TV shows I’m actively watching, guitar playing and guitar gear podcasts, podcasts about playing in bands, podcasts about photography, podcasts about politics. Lots and lots of podcasts.

Given all of the posts here lately talking about music, you’d think I would listen to music while I work. I do sometimes, I just find it more distracting. Every now and then though I feel the need to put on an album or a playlist and let it run. I can’t give a percentage of podcasts vs music or anything. I don’t think about it that analytically. It’s just podcasts most of the time and music some of the time. That’s all.

Fascinating story, eh?

Bad Stomach Evening

Remember that post from earlier where I was talking about bad stomach issues? They cleared up quickly enough back then, but they came roaring back after the little protein bar dinner I had.

It was really bad for a couple of hours but I think it’s clearing up again. My one question to my little re-wired stomach pouch is:

What the fuck, bro?

My evening is a pretty screwed up mess, you know? Here’s hoping it stays away and I can rejoin society. I was planning on sunrise-over-the-ocean photos tomorrow but now I’m afraid to even think about getting off the couch. It’s just me and Doctor Who season five for now.

Comfort Food

Daily writing prompt
What’s your go-to comfort food?
View all responses

Wow! This is a major question. I could go really deep into this. I won’t, really, but I could.

Pre-Gastric Bypass surgery in May 2022 the answer here was all junk food. Anything with chocolate would qualify for the win. Sour cream and onion potato chips could do it too. Chocolate though. Candy bars, cookies, ice cream, anything with chocolate served as a comfort food, and served extremely well. My weight topping 450 pounds was evidence of that.

Today, post-Gastric Bypass surgery in May 2022 is a much harder question to answer. Not because I don’t have an answer, but because my diet has changed constantly over the last year and two months. Immediately after the surgery the answer was water. Shortly after that it changed to hot chicken broth. Eventually it became an actual food, scrambled eggs. Things have gotten weirder and weirder since then. At various times the answer could have been one of a number of protein bars. Atkins Pretzel bars, Atkins Cookie Dough bars, Quest Cookie Dough bars, Quest Cookies and Cream bars. All of those had there moments (and some are still really close to winning today).

The current answer though, which might be a surprise I guess, is Ore-Ida Golden Crisper frozen french fries. These things are absolutely heaven and at this point in my life I don’t think I can live without them. Love and thanks and respect to the folks at Ore-Ida for coming up with this culinary masterpiece that I can crank out in the air fryer in almost no time at all.

My Favorite Game(s)

Daily writing prompt
What’s your favorite game (card, board, video, etc.)? Why?
View all responses

A little vague on the question end once again. Favorite game to play? To watch? Board game? Video game? So many options.

Overall I think we need to go with favorite sport, meaning favorite spectator sport. It’s a toss up between baseball and hockey. Red Sox and Bruins, babie.

As for games that I actually play, I think the winner would be EA Sports NHL hockey games for the Playstation. I haven’t played much in the last few years, but it’s still my #1 video game.

Board games should come next on the list. There are a lot of board games I like to play, but do I have a favorite? When I was younger it was Life. More recently it is probably Ticket to Ride. Today? It’s probably both.

What about card games? There are many that are fun to play but nothing that I would consider a favorite. I’m just not that much of a card game guy. If I had to pick one I would say Draw Poker. That’s a fun game.

What about sports that I actually play? I played baseball when I was a kid and loved it. I never played hockey because I can’t skate. You may have heard of me. I am the one guy from New England who never learned to skate. Yup. I’m that one guy. I played soccer and basketball when I was a kid too and had a lot of fun, but they were never even close to as important to me as baseball. Now that I am an old person? I think we have to go with ten-pin bowling. Would that be a sport or a sport-adjacent? Maybe sport-ish? Whatever, it wins.

Well, there you have it. My favorite games. The Red Sox play the Mets tonight at 7:00pm. They also have to finish the game that was suspended due to heavy rain last night. I don’t know what time that’s happening.

The Land of Never Ending Rain

I wanted to cook a hamburger on the grill for lunch today. When I went upstairs to start prepping it started to rain. Figures. No cookout for me. I thought to myself, maybe I’ll cook dinner on the grill instead.

After I punched out of work I went upstairs to start prepping for dinner. The sky was almost pitch dark. Within minutes we were in the middle of a major thunderstorm. The sky opened and the rain fell in sheets. The lightning was close by and nearly constant. The thunder shook the entire house. No cookout for me.

Friggin’ rain. Mother nature is a complete jerk.

Three Hours to Go

Three hours left in the work week.

180 minutes.

10800 seconds.

It’s a long weekend for me too. The company I work for puts a cap on how much personal time you can accrue and as your bank builds up you have to take time off to stay below the cap. It’s not as bad as the Boston Bruins salary cap woes right now, but it will get there if I don’t use time regularly. Because of that, I took two days off next week. Monday and Tuesday. That all means that ol’ Robbie has himself a four day weekend coming up.

Sadly, Jen was not able to take the two days off too, so that means I am on my own for the second half of my super long weekend. That means there will be lots of personal creative project type stuff. I checked the weather at the ocean for the next few days and both Sunday and Monday are looking like good candidates for sunrise photos. At least one of those mornings will be Photography Day where I will grab some sunrise at the beach and then hit a few places on the way home. Film and Digital. Bank on it (weather permitting).

There will also be a lot of music. As much as I can stomach. I plan on making gigantic progress on the 50 songs in 90 days challenge. That includes guitar tracking, vocal tracking in the car (because I have a weird mental block that won’t let me sing when people can hear me unless I am playing guitar with a very loud band), and mixing songs as I finish recording them.

There will also be progress on the current Doctor Who series binge watches. I finished season one of the original show this morning, and I am almost done with season four of the current show. So very many more seasons of each show to go. Progress will be made. I fully expect to move from the 10th doctor to the 11th doctor in the new show but I expect to still be on the first doctor in the old show. Like I said… so much Who to watch.

I am also thinking that I will be back on the couch to 5k wagon next week. It’s been a couple of weeks since I stopped. I want to get back into it, even though I am very doubtful I will ever run that mythical 5k. It’s still a goal, I just don’t know if it’s an achievable goal for me.

I have two days off booked in August too. They are for a weekend trip to Maine for a wedding. Bellana will be joining us for that and I expect lots of photos from Acadia National Park near Bar Harbor. Again, film and digital. That include Cadillac Mountain, which is the first spot in the continental United States that sees the sunrise over the Atlantic Ocean. It would require a SUPER early wake up to see, but I want very much to see it and photograph it. Now that I think of it, I should replace my broken tripod before we leave for that trip. The broken guy is good enough for this weekend, but for Cadillac Mountain? I’m going to need something that works. I’ll take care of it.

Okay, my late lunch break is over now. Time to get back to work and finish off this work week on a high note.