Another Weird Morning

I wrote about some stomach weirdness yesterday. I am pretty sure I know what it was, and it was not gastric bypass related. I am not going to say specifically because it goes big time into TMI territory. Suffice to say it happened again today and it has thrown off my whole daily routine.

I got up, felt a little off, but started my day as normal. I was trying to drink a water bottle while doing my daily exercise but after about 10 minutes and 12 ounces of water I was hit with a mild case of The Foamies. Something was trying to get into my stomach but was having trouble along the route and must have gotten stuck. I didn’t feel like anything was stuck, but I got into saliva over-production mode and had to stop exercising and take care of it. It was involved enough that I had to go upstairs and ride it out for a while.

Once I felt better I ate breakfast, which I never do before I finish my exercise for the day. At that point, the whole morning workflow is down the toilet. I still had 35 minutes of exercise left to do so I restarted. I ended up doing the whole daily goal instead of just finishing the first attempt. Due to that I managed to hit all of my Apple Watch activity goals for the day. Well, not the 12 stand-hours goal, but the exercise and move (calorie) goals. That’s nice.

Now that I’m punched into work for the day I think I am back on schedule. I just hate it when the routine goes south like this, even a little bit. I feel pretty normal now. Whatever it was seems to have passed. I felt that way yesterday too and then it came back before lunch. Let’s see how things progress today.

Good luck, Robbie.

2024 50/90 Challenge Day 5/90

I didn’t have a lot of time to spend on music on day five (yesterday) but I did manage to sneak in some work before bed. I added two new songs. Both are just MIDI bass and drums but they have the full song form. Basically the same progress that I made on day one. Not bad for an in-the-office day.

In the Wild

I finally saw one in the wild and it looks exactly as stupid and ridiculous as I expected.

Tonight on the drive home I saw a…

Cybertruck.

It looks like something the villain in an 80’s cartoon would drive. It’s that ridiculous. I fully expected to see Cobra Commander behind the wheel.

I mean, what a shit box.

I Miss It So Much

I’m having a weird stomach day. Not a bad day, just a weird day. That’s not what this post is about though. This post is about caffeine.

I used to consume caffeine by the truck load. I took it in caramel colored, carbonated form. Soda. Decades of Coca~Cola followed by a few years of Diet Pepsi. I just couldn’t get enough of that sweet, sweet, bubbly caffeine.

Then I signed up for elective weight loss surgery. I met with a dietitian at one of my first consultation appointments and was given a list of things that I had to say goodbye to forever. Both caffeine and carbonated beverages were on the list. I knew it was going to be tough but I also knew I was up for the challenge. I had my last ever soda that day.

Now here we are, about two and a half years later, and I would KILL for some caffeine right now. I have had a moderately decent night’s sleep each of the last three nights. I should be feeling fine in the exhausted department right now but I am not. Quite the opposite. I’m really tired. Back in the days prior to February 2022 I had so much caffeine each day that it barely affected me. Now? After over two years cold turkey? I bet even the tiniest sip of a caffeinated drink would leave me wired for hours on end. Wouldn’t that be nice?

Ah, for the good old days (he said sarcastically because the good old days included weighing over 400 pounds and he never ever wants to go back to that again).

Yeah, as nice as it would be to have a little caffeinated pick me up right now, I wouldn’t. No, I like the way I feel these days and I don’t want to do anything that will make me sick. Nope, while I miss it today I do not miss it enough to start thinking about how things used to be. No nostalgia here, my friends. I’ll trade a sleepy afternoon for being able to walk up a flight of stairs without feeling like I am going to die. That’s a trade that I win easily.

As for my stomach being weird today, I don’t think it’s diet or bypass surgery related though what else could it be? I woke up at 4:00am this morning (bladder: I’m old, it happens) and my stomach was pretty upset. I actually said out loud, “uh oh.” I whispered it. My wife was asleep and I didn’t want to wake her. I went back to bed and fell asleep immediately. When I woke up at 5:15 I felt better. Half an hour later I was doing my morning exercise and drinking some water and I felt off again. I paused on the water for a while and felt better again. I ate breakfast in the car on the way to work and it went fine. A little before lunch I felt a little queasy. I thought I was hungry and I think I was. I had some chicken for lunch and felt a little better at first, but then started feeling off again. I stopped eating for a while and eventually felt a little better. I had a snack and it went fine. That was about 90 minutes ago. Now I am drinking some water. In about five minutes I am going to have my last round of daily vitamins for the day. Here’s hoping things continue to feel okay through that. I expect I am going to have to have something to eat before I leave work today. There will be too long a gap between my after-lunch snack and dinner. My stomach is scheduled to be empty and angry starting around 5:30 tonight. I’ll have something small and then I should be okay for dinner.

Until then… dreams of that sweet, sweet caffeine. Sigh.

Starting a Tough, Short Week

This week is going to be a tough one for me. Not because anything particularly difficult is on the horizon, but because I took vacation days on Thursday and Friday and my brain is already in long weekend mode even though it’s only 11:30am on Monday.

Yeah, it’s going to be a long three days getting to that vacation time.

The reason I took the vacation time is Friday is my 20th anniversary with my company. July 12, 2004 was my start date. I figured I’d take the day off in celebration and then just splurged and took the day before too. I don’t have any set plans for the two days yet. Just vague ideas about making music in the cellar and going outside and taking lots of pictures. The latter assumes the weather will cooperate. The five day forecasts look okay, but not great. Maybe it’s getting time where I have to stop holding out for morning sunlight and just go outside and shoot whatever regardless of the light conditions. I don’t know. Maybe some ugly clouds over the ocean would look interesting? Who the hell knows. Surely not me.

Anyway, I am sure I will write 23462346747 more posts about my upcoming four day weekend before it actually arrives. For now though, here is today’s photo a day challenge picture… because. I don’t know. What do you want from me? I’m just an old hack. Leave me alone!

312/365
312/365

Testing… Testing…

I just plugged in a new keyboard at my desk in the office. Just test driving it. It is not as nice as the one it replaces, but it has a number pad and I had reached the point where I couldn’t live without one anymore.

Long live the new not-quite-as-clicky, clicky keyboard.

2024 50/90 Challenge Day 4/90

I started the day with two goals. Let’s call them goals A and B.

Goal A was to put rhythm guitars on all eight songs that are currently in progress. That goal was completed, though the guitar playing got sloppier and sloppier as the day rolled on.

Goal B was to add another song or two to the pipeline. That goal was not completed. I just didn’t have it in me last night.

Today is day five and I am working in the office. There will be a significant reduction in available time to get music done. We’ll see what happens.

More Guitar

I spent some more time this afternoon playing guitar. Just adding parts to some 50/90 Challenge songs, that’s all.

My finger tips hurt. Maybe I’ll have calluses again by the time the 50/90 challenge ends in October. That would be nice.

Laugh at the nerd!