Luck O’ The Irish?

Today’s mysterious condition is a feeling that I have something lodged in my throat. This feeling started late Friday night after eating some pistachio gelato and its “intensity” increased and faded throughout the weekend. I’ve actually experienced this before in the not-too-distant past. There has been nothing more disconcerting to me than the idea of being able to swallow (and breathe) so I’m considering scheduling an appointment with an ENT doctor. Know of a great one in Atlanta? One that you’d highly recommend?

I’m all-in with the green today, so maybe that’ll help.

Today’s Daily Challenge
Eat 1 food with prebiotics, such as whole-grain bread, bananas, berries, onions, or garlic.

Prebiotics are a kind of non-digestible nutrient that encourages the growth of good bacteria in the intestine. Some studies have shown that eating foods high in prebiotics can help prevent and treat tummy troubles such as gastroenteritis and problems with irritable bowel. They may also offer benefits to the immune system.

What about corned beef and cabbage, do they have prebiotics? What about beer?

Moderately Enjoyable Weekend
On Friday night I escaped the hell that was Friday afternoon rush hour by leaving the office at 4:00pm. I’m salaried and knew that I’d be returning for a few hours on Saturday so I didn’t much care if anyone scoffed at me. I joined Betsy (and dogs) and Gary for some Tasty China and beverages while we watched some “Between Two Ferns” and “Drunk History”; I enjoyed the latter more than the former. I gorged myself on Tasty China, beer, and some chocolate gelato (I think I may have a Talenti Gelato problem) before returning home.

Saturday morning I arose early still feeling the odd sensation that started late Friday night. I prepared myself for a post-Tasty China day and made my way to the office for awhile. After a few hours of unproductive typing I made my way over to Taco Mac where I had a couple of beers and some nachos (hoping to clear the pipes with these) and watch my beloved Gators eke out a Men’s basketball win over Tennessee. While sitting at Taco Mac watching the basketball game I realized that it had been six years, to the day, that a tornado wound its way through downtown, Cabbagetown, and near my backyard. Six years? My how time flies…

With the cool, rainy weather upon us on Sunday I stayed at home all day. During “breaks” from writing code I did my data backups, some house cleaning, some podcasts listening/watching, and made a loaf of bread in the bread machine (note to self: get some dough going for a future loaf baked in the oven). Though I did not take care of all of the chores I wanted to do yesterday I will say that the day was a productive one.

ITP Flickr Pic
“Who Is There?”
Who Is There?
When I had painters at the house a few months ago (wow, December?) they conveniently painted over the peepholes in my doors. Yesterday I took some nail polish remover (yes, a single, straight man can and should have some of this on hand) and some Q-Tips and worked the paint off. Even though the front door’s peephole appears to be scratched moderately this may be the first time since I moved into the house fifteen years ago that I can see through these.

Whole Lotta FILMING Going On
Recently I have been seeing many tweets like these.
Whole Lotta Filming Going On
Anyone know what’s being filmed? I’ve passed the trucks a couple of times on my commute to work but have never seen a face that I recognize.

Hey look, I see at least one spelling error in those tweets!

Speaking of Twitter, I got caught by the “Wayne Knight (think “Newman on Seinfeld”) is dead” hoax because I read it via a tweet from someone who I never expected to fall for an internet hoax.

Today’s Personal Project
Get a workout in before going somewhere to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day.

Stats & Goals
Daily
Current Mood – worried
Current Music – silence
Website Of The Day – Where I’m from St. Patrick’s Day is (or was) a big deal. Perhaps Boston has a bigger celebration, but my heart belongs to NYC Saint Patrick’s Day Parade.
Mode Of Transportation To Work – my car
Exercise (b)Log – nothing
Morning Weigh-In – Arg, I keep forgetting to jump on the scale

Monthly
Foot Mileage – ~3.9 miles
Wheel Mileage – 0.0 miles
Gym Visits – 4 (4 cardio)

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

March Goals
– have Austin CocoaConf trip plans in place (new)
– exercise no fewer than twenty days (new)
– ride my bike no fewer than five times (new)
– have European trip plans in place, if not carved in stone
– clean my basement to the point where I could have people over
– hire a plumber to fix all of the sinks at the ITP Estate
– walk no fewer than 75 miles
– publish an app to the iOS AppStore

2014 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
– 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
– Sell the ITP Estate (tentative)

2014 Goals: Unmeasurable
– Continue to 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)

Books I’ve Read/Heard In 2014

  1. “Johnny Carson” by Henry Bushkin
  2. “Steal Like an Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative” by Austin Kleon

Cheers,
Paulie [eatl/ga]

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21 Responses to Luck O’ The Irish?

  1. bob says:

    Paulie that lump in your throat may simply be allergies. Something is blooming that is killing me, I think it started around Friday too. It is strange, as I get older my allergies have gotten worse. I didn’t have these problems in my youth.

    My house now has 2 toilets again! Bathroom #1 is done except for painting the door. Bathroom #2 needs some drywall repair, paint, and a vanity but should be wrapped up soon. This renovation has been rough trying to balance my time between family time, riding, crossfit, work, etc. Not enough hours in the day.

  2. Allergies, perhaps. I did take Alavert (my allergy medicine of choice these days) on Saturday and Sunday and it seemed to help.

    Good on ya, Bob! When I return from Austin I will be restarting the process of getting my house ready for sale.

    Btw- hope this weather improves for your ride to the capital tomorrow.

  3. Barb says:

    Sunday was our not fun day, Allan went out to the garage & found a large pool of water on the floor, and water dripping from the ceiling. Climbed up in the attic to find a nice size hole with a tree branch sticking out of it. OF course it is on the back since of the house, where you can’t really see the roof very easily, so we’d never know about it until a good rain. No idea when it happened. It is a branch from the neighbor’s tree, so she is supposedly calling her insurance company. We will find her again this evening to see what she found out. We wet vac’d up all the water, the insuation in the attic is drying out, temprarily patched the whole in the roof. I have to look at this postive, we got very lucky. Nothing really damaged except the roof.

    Allergies are starting…….. I’m taking my Allegra every day.

  4. bob says:

    Thanks, it has been a long road, we are hoping to have the house on the market end of May or early June. Like all projects, it takes time and money, if you don’t have one it takes a lot of the other.

    Last year we had snow flurries at the beginning of the ride, I really hope we don’t have rain. It will be fun any way.

  5. martha says:

    An allergic reaction was my first thought when you said it happened after eat pistachios. I sometimes get that feeling when I eat shrimp (like shrimp cocktail shrimp, but not when it is fried) Also eggplant will my my lips/mouth very numb and/or tingly. I know of an ENT (I’ll have to look him up, I only saw him twice)…is he ‘highly recommended’? He checked out lumpy, told me it probably wasn’t anything and it wasn’t. So he’s batting 1000 when it comes to weird lumps on a 40ish woman’s neck.

    Tomorrow is the big day! Just confirmed the mover for tomorrow morning and now waiting on Lowes to let me know when they will arrive with the stove and fridge. We spend the weekend packing & cleaning (both East Side and Knott). I installed shades in the main room, installed shelf paper in the kitchen…did some last minute shopping for odds and ends.

    Hopefully, city inspector comes today… even if he doesn’t we are still moving tomorrow. Kat and John need to stay here Wednesday since they are having a film shoot at their house (ah, see I tied it in to the blog)….speaking of, I saw some stuff about films on the Buzz, if I have time I’ll see what it said.

  6. martha says:

    Oh yeah, I saw that on FB. Sorry to hear Barb…like you said very lucky is wasn’t any worse. I’m sure Allan will have it fixed in no time.

    Bob, next time I’ve got a great contractor I can recommend 🙂

  7. Forgot to mention that I saw an opossum wander into and then to the back of my backyard on Saturday around 7pm. WTF are the feral cats (of which there are far fewer these days) doing to earn their keep?

    Unlucky Barb. When my neighbor’s tree lost a branch and hit the corner of my roof my insurance company told me that it was my insurance that would have to pay, not theirs; I still don’t understand this logic.

    Wait, Kat’s & Mango’s house is in a film shoot? Wowza.

  8. Barb says:

    So, Kat & John are letting the movie people use their house? I know John was trying to figure out what all was involved. They are only displaced 1 day?

    and Bob – where do you guys want to move to? have you figured that out yet?

  9. Bob, I know of a nice fixer-upper in East Atlanta that you can afford. Of course, whatever you save by buying my house will be spent on sending Travis to a private school.

  10. martha says:

    I don’t think most cats are going to take on a possum, not without good reason. Now Nibbles, she throws herself against the door every time our possum (Pythagoras) comes up to the front door. Not sure what she would do if I let her out.

    Paulie is correct, it is generally your insurances responsibility if your neighbors tree falls on your property. Unless they (your neighbors) have been notified the tree is a hazard…

    I don’t know much about the shoot. The film folks are setting up Wednesday so they are thinking about crashing here that night…don’t know how long they plan of being there.

    Works for me, now we HAVE to move! (my car is loaded up a al Beverly Hillbilly style ready for some after work moving)

  11. martha says:

    This was my Otorhinolaryngologist

    http://www.entinstitute.com/guffin.php

    He’s a talker, but does have some interesting stories.

  12. Barb says:

    well – Jake from State Farm (ok, that wasn’t his name) said it was the neighbors responsibility when I called them yesterday. Allan is going to call our State Farm agent this afternoon. The tree is fine, it was just a branch, so no, there has never been any decussion about it being a hazard.

    I asked John – they are displaced for about a week – for most likely 1 day of shooting. He said he doesn’t think he can say any more than that.

  13. martha says:

    what was Jake wearing?

  14. Huh, that’s an odd question. 😉

    C’mon, Kat and Mango can tell us! What are we going to do, blog about it? 🙂

  15. bob says:

    I would love to move in to town but putting Travis in private school would break us. Plus, not sure I want Travis to become one of those in town hipsters 🙂

    I actually like our little slice of suburban heaven, mtn bike trails close by, good schools, good cycling community. We want Travis to stay in the same school so are looking at the neighborhood across the street, it is nicer and has a community pool (we need something to wear Travis out).

    I would love to hire out our remodel too but doing it myself I figure we are saving a few thousand dollars which we can put in to the down payment of the next place. So it is the time/money equation.

  16. bob says:

    And that is cool that Kat and Mango are renting out their house for a shoot. I remember as a kid we rented out our house to a boxer that was in town for a month training for a fight. I remember it was James “Quick” Tillis or something like that, I was probably 10 so don’t remember all the details. I also remember going to a hotel to watch the fight because the hotel had HBO and this was before cable was available to houses.

  17. Barb says:

    that State Farm commercial makes me laugh every time.
    uhhhh, Khakis?

  18. Steve says:

    10:00 and already 14 comments? It’s Monday people!!

    Martha- you have named your ‘possum?
    Barb- Sorry to hear about the roof and glad it wasn’t any more damage than it was.
    Bob- selling and going where?

    It was a weekend of bike racing for me. Saturday was a piece of cake, but Sunday with the rain and gloomy clouds made the “finish cameras” useless. 2 little GoPro’s the promoter hold up over his head. Not enough light to catch numbers, so we had to go to my scoring and calling the role of the riders. Not a lot of fun, but I think folks were OK. Several fields were quite happy with our idea to shorten the race by a lap. It was miserable weather to race in.

    Sadly, Satchmo is getting worse, despite the steroids. We have the vet coming over this evening. I am just barely holding it together as I type this.

    -FP

  19. Barb says:

    oh Steve -that sucks about Satchmo.

    and Bob – the commute from in-town to Alpharetta would suck. Stay in Roswell. (or, better yet, come to Cobb County)

  20. bob says:

    I hear you, commuting to Alpharetta from there is not an option. We are looking close to here first then will branch out. I don’t think Laura will move any further north though.

    Steve, so sorry to hear about Satchmo. Dogs are our family and there are some really tough decisions to be made. I hate to hear you are going through it.

  21. Martha says:

    Of course, I’ve named the possum (Pythagoras), all the stray cats (Iris, Mr. Folgeburg & Scaredy Cat), even the mouse that got in last winter (I called him Jerry)…

    Sorry about Satchmo, I’m thinking good thoughts for all of you.

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