Time To Get Serious

Things are heating up around here, not in a great way, but I’m doing my best. After another night of camping at the office (read below for why) I need to start finding time for exercising and fixing the things which are wrong in my life.

Today’s Personal Project
Mail out my Christmas cards. Email me your physical address if you want a Christmas card from yours truly. My email address is posted in the right-hand galley.

Today’s Daily Challenge
Learn signs and symptoms of shingles.

Shingles affects millions of people worldwide each year, and anyone who has had chicken pox (also called varicella zoster) can develop it. About half of the people who develop it are over age 60, but it can affect a person at any age. It is sometimes misdiagnosed, which makes knowing the signs and symptoms important. Moreover, for treatment to be most effective, people with shingles need to start taking medication as soon as symptoms appear.

Insert lame joke about thinking shingles were only the things on the sides and tops of houses….

Actually, like many children in the 1970s I got the chicken pox. So, this is good information for me.

Did You Know There Are Two Dave & Buster’s Up I-85?
I sure didn’t so it came as quite a surprise to my boss and me (look at that!) as we were told that there was no company party scheduled at Dave & Buster’s off of Sugarloaf Parkway (Antidotally, we were told that this location used to be a Jillian’s — whatever the heck a Jillian’s is/was.), and that perhaps our party was at the Dave & Buster’s off of Steve Reynolds Blvd instead.

Oh you OTP people and your multiple Dave & Buster’s locations… (How should “Dave & Buster’s” be pluralized? “Dave’s and Buster’s”? “Dave & Buster’ss”?).

Once inside the proper Dave & Buster’s I commenced to using my one drink ticket on a Fat Tire and sat down to a dinner of chicken with rice and carrots, and some dessert.

We were given an “unlimited” video gaming, $25 credit ticketed gaming card, so my coworkers and I commenced to having some fun. I noticed something about Dave & Buster’s, I didn’t much like most of the video games. It’s been years since I’ve been in a Dave & Buster’s, and by now I would have expected to be blown away by the video game technology. I was not. The party ended around 6:00pm for me.

Fun At Taco Mac
Following Dave & Buster’s my boss and I headed to our local Taco Mac to meet a coworker who couldn’t make the party. I consumed way too many liquid calories there.

I’d planned on a long night of alcohol consumption, which is why I packed a change of clothes and my sleeping bag so that I could camp at the office. I had also planned on doing work when I returned to the office, but given the state I was in at that time it’s probably best that all I did was pass out on the floor of my cubicle inside my sleeping bag.

Stats & Goals
Daily
Current Mood – okay, though nagging health conditions continue
Current Music – silence
Website Of The Day – Your Shingles 411 from the folks at the CDC.
Mode Of Transportation To Work – my car
Exercise (b)Log – nothing
Morning Weigh-In – not taken

Monthly
Foot Mileage – ~10.5 miles
Wheel Mileage – 0.0 miles
Pushups – 0
Situps – 0
Stairs – 0 flights

Days Of Bed-Making – 0

Vegetarian Meals – 14
Carnivorous Meals – 14
Pancakes Eaten – 3

Marta Rides To Work – 0
Bike Rides To Work – 0

December Goals
– lose five pounds
– walk/run no fewer that 100 miles
– read at least one book
– dissolve Sharpened Stone, LLC
– donate money to charities
– take care of myself first
– take care of my house second

2012 Goals [will be a little less fluid than last year]
– Get my weight under 200 pounds, or at least whittle myself back down to where wearing a 36″ pant size is comfortable
– Completely read ten books, audio books permissible
– Run Sharpened Stone as a real business
– Save $500 for the sole purpose of donating to charitable organizations of my choice
– Attend at least one professional photography workshop
– Ride in no fewer than five 50 mile or 50K bike rides
– Run in no fewer than one one 10K
– Submit at least one application under the name “Sharpened Stone” to Apple’s iOS store
– Restore the ITP Estate to a condition where it can be put up for sale at any time
– Buy a new iPhone (iPhone 5), a new iPad (iPad 3?), and MacBook Air [look, not all goals have to be altruistic]

The Unmeasurable
– Continue backing up all data, including the off-site storage
– Become a proficient and profitable programmer in Objective-C
– Do not create a solution for something which is not a problem
– Eat smaller portions
– Start, and continue, to make my own bread using my bread machine as well as using the technique outlined in Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day: The Discovery That Revolutionizes Home Baking
– Read and discard magazines during the month in which they arrive (even digitally)
– See more live concerts than I did in 2011
– Drive/Fly somewhere for a real vacation

Books I’ve Read/Heard In 2012

1. Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me — Mindy Kahling
2. Flotsametrics and the Floating World: How One Man’s Obsession with Runaway Sneakers and Rubber Ducks Revolutionized Ocean Science — Curtis Ebbesmeyer
3. God, No! — Penn Jillette
4. The Elephant to Hollywood — Michael Caine
5. Here Comes Trouble — Michael Moore
6. How We Decide — Jonah Lehrer
7. Steve Jobs — Walter Isaacson
8. Death of a Salesman (Penguin Plays) — Arthur Miller
9. Fahrenheit 451 — Ray Bradbury
10. White Jacket Required — Jenna Weber

Cheers,
Paulie [eatl/ga]