Big Monday

Whoops, I seem to be gaining weight, not losing it.

Today’s Daily Challenge
Take a few minutes to remember a moment of glory.

Moments of glory aren’t just for marathon winners and rock stars – they are for all of us to experience! By reflecting on your own moment of glory and how you felt when it happened, you get to re-experience that sense of self-esteem and think about which of your skills made you extra-special that day.

This Week’s Big Three
Returns! This is a feature I’ve been meaning to keep up (you know, like eating better and working out) but have forgotten to do so.

Here’s this week’s “Big Three”

1. Settle the damn bill between my insurance company and the lab company who did the work for my physical. Yes, it’s still going on. [UPDATE: I just got off the phone and was told that I no longer owe money and that I will not receive any more bills. I’ll believe it when I don’t see it.]
2. Pack for my absence this week. I’m hoping to spend a couple of days getting away from everything (which may include blogging, we’ll see)
3. During my absence I hope to finish at least one book as well as that paperwork I’ve been referencing.

All achievable this week.

Cheeses Christ
After gazing at Atlanta’s Friday rush hour traffic on Friday afternoon I decided to MARTA down to midtown and walk down to Park Tavern for the first annual Atlanta Cheese Festival. Upon entering Park Tavern I was nearly overwhelmed with the amount of cheese (and other items) there were to sample. I noshed on a little of this and a little of that before coming to the section of the event set aside for the grilled cheese sandwich competition. There were seven restaurants competing:

• The General Muir
• Muss & Turners
• Seven Lamps
• KR Steak House
• The Argosy
• Miller Union
• Homegrown

and a special bonus sandwich made by High Road Craft Ice Cream.

Daaaamn, the grilled cheese bites were good! There was only one sample that I thought was lame, but I won’t call them out in this venue, the rest were quite delicious. It was very hard for me to pick from the remaining six and vote for my best. With all of these samples I had two small glasses of Sweetwater IPA. Each participant was given four drink tickets. Believe it or not, I only used two (in part because of what you’ll read next, and in part because of the lines to get beer).

At 6:30pm we “VIPs” were let up into the top floor of Park Tavern (the last time I was there it was for the wedding of ITP-Readers Laura and Bob) where we got our “goodie” bags and had a beer/cheese pairing with six samples of cheese paired with six short pours of Sweetwater beers.

At the end of the tasting I was feeling quite full and was sitting around by my lonesome, feeling ready to leave. I had texted ITP-Reader Stacy and was on my way back to MARTA when she replied. I stopped at a local market and brought over some beer. Stacy was kind enough to gift me three bottles of Sprecher Root Beer for coming over.

I don’t drop things.

No, I normally don’t drop things.

Unfortunately on Friday I did drop something, my “goodie” bag containing the spoils from the cheese festival as well as the three bottles of root beer. DANGEN! Keep in mind that I still needed to take MARTA back to Perimeter Mall, now with a goodie bag filled with broken glass and root beer-soaked goods. [Grammarians: How should I have hyphenated “root beer soaked?”]

By the time I reached my car I was ready to drive home, but decided to head to my office in order to clean out my bag and salvage what I could before making the forty-minute drive home.

I arrived home at 11:30pm, tired, and ready to hit the sack.

An Ugly Weekend Of Sports For Me
I knew it would be a stretch for Florida to beat LSU in Baton Rouge, but at least I thought that they would score a touchdown; they didn’t.

I knew that the NY Jets weren’t as good as the team that beat the Falcons on Monday night, but I expected them to beat the winless Steelers in New York, and I assumed that they would score a touchdown; they didn’t.

I started thinking about making a weekend trip to Nashville, Tennessee to see my NY Islanders play the Nashville Predators this season. Turns out the Isles made their only visit to Nashville on Saturday night, and lost; at least they scored a goal, two in fact.

ITP Flickr Pic
“Cheese & Beer Pairing: Before And After”

I’ve had each of the Sweetwaters before so I knew what to expect from them, the cheese however was a different story. Of the six samples numbers 1, 4, and 6 were my favorite.

Bowling, Bowling, Bowling, Keep That Paulie Bowling
I watched the Florida / LSU game at Mazzy’s in Marietta (East Cobb). I had heard of Mazzy’s through some hashers who played ice hockey for a team sponsored by the bar. Upon arriving I saw a huge banner marking it as the location for the Atlanta NY Jets Fan Club (I didn’t even know one existed!). I wish I had been at Mazzy’s last Monday night and I am thankful that I didn’t make that long drive yesterday to watch that abysmal performance by the Jets.

After watching the Gators lose their game my boss (who joined me at Mazzy’s to watch his Clemson Tigers play) and I headed down to Delk Road to meet up with a couple of other coworkers to do some bowling.

I bowled okay, averaging in the 140s for the four games I bowled. Bowling has gotten expensive. As one of four people bowling for two hours and renting shoes my total, including two beers and tip, was $40. However the worst part of the evening was the near two-hours worth of rap/hip-hop played throughout the alley on Saturday night.

Nerding It Up In A Different Way
Tonight I’ll be doing my first-ever “Hack Night.” Tonight’s Hack Night is sponsored by Big Nerd Ranch and will be held at their office on Krog Street — the USS Highgroove (acquired when Highgroove merged with Big Nerd Ranch). Tonight’s theme is “Hacking the Evernote API.”

I’m more than a little nervous about tonight, I’m not sure what to expect, I didn’t study the Evernote API as much as I should have in preparation, and the Highgroove studio was where I flopped one Saturday afternoon last year when I tried that paired-coding day.

Today’s Personal Project
Do my best tonight, try to have fun if possible.

Stats & Goals
Daily
Current Mood – fat, frustrated, nervous
Current Music – silence at the moment
Website Of The Day – One of the freebies in my “goodie” bag was a small jar of honey from Savannah Bee Company.
Mode Of Transportation To Work – MARTA
Exercise (b)Log – nothing
Morning Weigh-In – 215 pounds (October 14), I’m going the wrong way

Monthly
Foot Mileage – ~10.1 miles
Wheel Mileage – 0.0 miles
Gym Visits – 0 (0 cardio)

Days Of Bed-Making – 0

Vegetarian Meals – 12
Carnivorous Meals – 20

Marta Rides To Work – 3
Bike Rides To Work – 0

October Goals
– clean my basement to the point where I could have people over
– hire a plumber to replace my malfunctioning faucets
– submit to important documents, neither of which I can talk about at this time
– walk no fewer than 75 miles

2013 Goals: Measurable
– Get my weight down to 190 pounds so that I can wear a 36″ waist pants comfortably
– Completely read ten books, audio books permissible
– Dissolve Sharpened Stone
– Save $500 for the sole purpose of donating to charitable organizations of my choice
– Completely run at least one 10k
– Fix all (or at least most) of the things which are wrong with the ITP Estate

2013 Goals: Unmeasurable
– Simplify, simplify, simplify
– Continue backing up all data, including the off-site storage
– 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)
– Take two real vacations, perhaps one abroad
– Take a more proactive approach to meeting women (read “stop being such a pussy”)

Books I’ve Read/Heard In 2013

1. Pages 1.7 for iPad (Timestompers Guide) — by Sean Wells
2. 60 Mountain Lion Tips — by David Sparks and Brett Terpstra
3. The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business — by Charles Duhigg
4. The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy — by Douglas Adams
5. Amazing Things Will Happen: A Real-World Guide on Achieving Success and Happiness — by CC Chapman
6. So Good They Can’t Ignore You: Why Skills Trump Passion in the Quest for Work You Love — by Cal Newport
7. Born Standing Up: A Comic’s Life — by Steve Martin
8. Who Am I: A Memoir — by Pete Townshend

Cheers,
Paulie [eatl/ga]