As I type this, I'm about to be trapped in my apartment for a second day. Because of snow.
I know I've mentioned before that I don't like how Seattle is mocked for its reaction to snow, but I have never missed two days of work in a month due to weather.
My general practice is to miss the first day of snow. That gives the idiots who don't actually know how to drive in this crap a day to wind up in the ditch and allows the city a full day to sand and/or salt the roads, making them safer to drive. Not only that, but my driveway on Monday was a block of ice with snow on top of it. By Tuesday, I was able to make it in.
But there is another storm blowing in. It's already bad tonight - it took us far too long to get home. Which is funny, because the first two thirds of our commute was dry.
As it stands, I will probably miss work tomorrow. And I'll be trapped in the apartment, because my driveway will be a block of ice with snow on top.
When I'm home like this, I go stir-crazy. I love spending time at home. In fact, I don't go stir-crazy unless I can't leave the house for some reason.
I spent Monday on my PS3, playing Skyrim. I expect to spend tomorrow doing dishes and blogging to keep my mind off the "trapped" feeling. Maybe I'll take some photos of my games for that GeekList I've been pondering ...
My wife is able to work from home, and I won't get in the way of that. It's almost worse than being home alone.
Ah, well. Nothing I can do about it but suffer through it.
Right?
Friday, January 27, 2012
Friday, January 20, 2012
Dieting
It's not exactly a New Year's Resolution, but I need to lose a few pounds.
By "a few pounds," I mean "a fifth-grader."
Right now, I'm sitting around 300 lbs.
So we broke out the Kinect and the Wii Fit.
And I've changed my food habits. I'm down to 1-2 sodas per week. I've started eating green leafy things.
And I hate it.
I'd heard that low-calorie versions of foods were inferior to the normal full-calorie fat-filled foods, but I'd never experienced it personally before. It'd all been anecdotal to me. And now it's true.
A friend of mine who is a professional chef informed me years ago that "fat is flavor." And he wasn't kidding.
Instead of eating low-calorie foods, I'm eating smaller portions. It's been more than a decade since I had leftovers from a restaurant on a regular basis - and now it's the norm.
It's a weird feeling, not being able to finish two tacos and some fries last week.
The Wii Fit and Kinect Adventures are also killing me. I wake up in the mornings, and my legs ache. because they haven't had to move me quickly left and then right and then left and then right and duck and jump and duck and jump and ... Yeah. It's like that.
I know that long-term, I'm going to be a lot better-off, but I really don't like these early stages.
At all.
Friday, January 13, 2012
Alarm Clocks
I have to be out of my apartment every morning by around 6:30 am in order to make it in to work on time. If you hadn't figured it out by now, let me spell this out for you: I am not a morning person.
I never have been, and I probably never will be.
The very first thing I experience every morning is a repetitive buzzing. Over and over and over.
I hate it.
I fully understand that, were it not for this clock, I would not make it in to work, and I would become unemployed. But that doesn't mean I have to like it.
It's interesting to me - alarm clocks are such a core component of nearly everyone's daily life. And yet ...
Is there anyone who likes these things? No. Really.
Historically, alarm clocks would ring a bell. Loudly and repeatedly.
In the eighties, it was clock radios, which would turn the radio on so we could listen to the perky morning show hosts. These never worked for me, forcing me to the other alternative of the time - loud obnoxious buzzing things. Of course the eighties also gave us the snooze button. They may have existed before this time, but they became more widespread in the eighties.
Do you know what that snooze button does? It postpones the inevitable and makes you late more often than not. And most snooze buttons are set for nine minutes of rest - who dreamed that number up? Is it a matter of snoozing for less than ten minutes?
These days, it seems as though most "alarm clocks" are phones. We use my wife's phone. And, while she usually finishes the wake-up process, her phone starts the ball rolling. Loudly and obnoxiously. And with an weird fifteen minute snooze.
And we both hate waking up to it.
I never have been, and I probably never will be.
The very first thing I experience every morning is a repetitive buzzing. Over and over and over.
I hate it.
I fully understand that, were it not for this clock, I would not make it in to work, and I would become unemployed. But that doesn't mean I have to like it.
It's interesting to me - alarm clocks are such a core component of nearly everyone's daily life. And yet ...
Is there anyone who likes these things? No. Really.
Historically, alarm clocks would ring a bell. Loudly and repeatedly.
In the eighties, it was clock radios, which would turn the radio on so we could listen to the perky morning show hosts. These never worked for me, forcing me to the other alternative of the time - loud obnoxious buzzing things. Of course the eighties also gave us the snooze button. They may have existed before this time, but they became more widespread in the eighties.
Do you know what that snooze button does? It postpones the inevitable and makes you late more often than not. And most snooze buttons are set for nine minutes of rest - who dreamed that number up? Is it a matter of snoozing for less than ten minutes?
These days, it seems as though most "alarm clocks" are phones. We use my wife's phone. And, while she usually finishes the wake-up process, her phone starts the ball rolling. Loudly and obnoxiously. And with an weird fifteen minute snooze.
And we both hate waking up to it.
Friday, January 6, 2012
Headaches
As I write this, I'm suffering from a headache. And the odds are pretty good that so is my wife.
I get small headaches all the time. They're a regular if annoying part of my life. They're not debilitating most of the time, and I can just pop some aspirin or ibuprofin and work through it.
My wife's headaches are debilitating. Enough so that she at one point had FMLA paperwork on file because she was missing work for it. After multiple CAT scans and a variety of other scans, x-rays, and so on, her doctors were baffled as to their cause. And they haven't been able to figure out how to cure her, even after nearly a decade of pain. What they did was give her some painkillers that also impair her ability to function.
She lives her life through a constant haze of headache. Or else in a drugged haze.
It's clear how this has impacted her quality of life.
I get migraines. Occasionally. But it's got nothing on what she goes through every single day.
And I don't like anything that stresses my wife out or causes her pain.
I get small headaches all the time. They're a regular if annoying part of my life. They're not debilitating most of the time, and I can just pop some aspirin or ibuprofin and work through it.
My wife's headaches are debilitating. Enough so that she at one point had FMLA paperwork on file because she was missing work for it. After multiple CAT scans and a variety of other scans, x-rays, and so on, her doctors were baffled as to their cause. And they haven't been able to figure out how to cure her, even after nearly a decade of pain. What they did was give her some painkillers that also impair her ability to function.
She lives her life through a constant haze of headache. Or else in a drugged haze.
It's clear how this has impacted her quality of life.
I get migraines. Occasionally. But it's got nothing on what she goes through every single day.
And I don't like anything that stresses my wife out or causes her pain.
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