Inside The Perimeter

Welcome to another end of month blog post.

As I type this I am cooling down from the shower I took after putting in 45 minutes on the trainer this morning. I started a little later than I hoped to because I fell back asleep and slept through my alarm by 45 minutes.

This week I have been in a bit of a foul mood, for no specific reason. I think my health, nothing connected to this week’s weigh in, has been bothering me; I’m constantly frustrated by my body and its inability to be “normal”.

Yesterday I went on an afternoon walk as my exercise for the first time in many weeks. I used to take almost daily walks at the start of this whole mess, but it was a lot cooler back then. It was too hot to work in the yard, something I have not done in over a week. 😕

This afternoon I’ll be joining Bonnie visiting our friend Robert, who also celebrates a birthday in July, for a beer or two at Lee+White (think “Monday Night Garage”, “Wild Heaven”, or “Best End Brewing”).

As a reminder:
What: Silver Comet Bike Ride
Where: Florence Road parking lot
When: Saturday morning, wheels on the ground 9:00am
Why: Earn some beer drinking of course

Have a great weekend, wear a mask in public when you can’t keep a safe distance, and attempt to stay healthy.

I’m sitting outside the Waschsalon; it’s like life has returned to normal, well, except that I am in shorts and a T-shirt and will be wearing a mask while doing laundry and not going into the office when done. 🤷🏻‍♂️

Yesterday was a new-normal day of work, 45 minutes on the trainer, and all meals eaten were prepared by my hands. I did spend time watching an old Top Chef while texting Betsy as well.

Once I am done with laundry I will be heading home to do work, and later be sitting in German class. I am hoping to shoehorn in a workout and knocking out a few simple chores to tick them off by month’s end tomorrow.

Here’s to staying well!

I am early. I am often early. Today I am fifteen minutes too early to go directly inside Lowe’s. I don’t have much to buy today, I just want to knock this chore out before the store gets busy.

Ugh, I just encountered my inability to blog using my iPhone thanks to the latest version of WordPress’s shortcomings. Moving to a text editor…

Yesterday I intended to work in the yard, cleaning up what the City left behind and assessing what they scraped up using their oversized claws for the process of yard waste removal. However my plan was thwarted by an early afternoon rainstorm. Instead, I popped into the basement and put in a tough 45 minutes on the trainer.

Last night I restarted watching and working along with Stanford’s Swift/SwiftUI course known in the world of programmers as “CS193p”, its Stanford course identity. It was past 9pm when I finished the first two lectures, and I rewarded myself by watching some mindless videos.

Today I refocus on work, need to put some time into preparing for tomorrow night’s German class, and hope to catch up with Betsy.

Hope you all are happy and are remaining healthy.

Unsurprisingly, I don’t have a lot to talk about today. I spend a good part of the day driving home, stopping only for essentials — food, gas, and bodily functions. Breakfast was a Beyond sausage sandwich from Dunkin Donuts, and lunch was an Impossible Whopper with fries at a Burger King.

I was rather a lump last night, unpacking and binge watching episodes of season 2 of “Making It”. Hulu’s excessive interruptions with commercials allowed me ample breaks to do simple chores.

Because I have not done hand washing since last week I now have five days of laundry to do. I thought about hitting up the Waschsalon this morning, but I think I’ll add another day or two of dirty clothes to the pile before going.

Tuesday Tale of the Tape: 196.8 pounds (+3.6 from last week’s weigh-in); disappointing, but considering all I ate and drank during my birthday and over the weekend it’s not surprising. Back at it again today!

Most likely when you are reading this I’m headed back ITP. It was a fun “birthday” weekend with the Raleigh Royalty.

Because the weather on Friday wasn’t great we hung at home and watched the movie Masterminds; it was a funny flick. On Friday evening we went to a “drive in” movie held at a local church. The movie being shown was “The Princess Bride”. The setup wasn’t the greatest, but we made do.

Saturday saw us do some family things like walk dogs, take and pick up kids from swimming, and then we headed to Jordan Lake where for the first time in my life I did stand up paddle boarding. I was quite shaky at first and went ass over teakettle the first time I tried to land the paddle board, but after a little while I was able to navigate somewhat. We celebrated our day with a stop for snacks at a restaurant patio, before returning back to the house where we vegged for the rest of the day and had pizza for dinner.

Much to the boys’ chagrin we loaded up the car on Sunday morning and drove down to Raven Rock State Park where we did a four-mile hike. Upon the hike’s end we stopped into Viscous Fishes brewery where we consumed a few beers before returning to the house. Last night we ordered in some Indian food while we watched the movie Irresistible. I also enjoyed “Irresistible”, which it seems has ties to Georgia including being filmed in part in Rockmart, and having a cameo appearance by Tom Key, now former artistic director of Theatrical Outfit.

By the time I make it back ITP, unload the car, and put everything where it needs to be, I will be ready to relax for the remainder of the evening.

Hope you all had a fun weekend and are staying healthy.

Good morning from Raleigh, NC. Even with driving rain I encountered starting near Greensboro, NC I made it in a “record” time, about 6.5 hours, mostly because with the exception of stopping for gas ($1.81/gal) in Gaffney, SC I drove straight though.

A lovely evening was had hanging with the Raleigh Royalty as we ate a home-cooked meal and had a few libations as we caught up with one another. Having not seen them in person since the days just before Shelter In Place, for some reason they are under the impression that I have lost weight. 😉😂😂😂

We are talking about doing many outdoor activities — hiking, swimming, walking — while I am here. Of course I am happy to do any or all of these, especially now that my bathing suit will fit me better, but the weather will dictate what we can actually do.

I hope that you all have a wonderful and healthy weekend. I’ll be back again on Monday.

Let me start off by thanking you all for the fantastic birthday greetings. I felt very special. I was also astonished to have a surprise delivery of a Hungry Man dinner, large package of Twizzlers, and a slab of red velvet cake courtesy of our friend Betsy. and then the icing on the cake was a visit from Bonnie who arrived with gifts, as well as a lovely dinner from SoBa, beer, and a piece of cake! Thank you all again!

I found out last night that I am one day older than Guns N’ Roses guitarist Slash. Happy 55th birthday, Slash.

To battle my bulge form getting bigger again I put in 45 minutes on the trainer yesterday morning, and am going to try to do the same today.

Another reason I need to get in a workout this morning is because this afternoon I will hop into the M6 and drive all the way to Raleigh. I’ll be visiting the Raleigh Royalty this weekend to help celebrate the upcoming 50th birthday of Raleigh Royalty Lisa. Steve, can you believe it’s been nearly twenty years since we serenaded her with “Happy Birthday” on her thirtieth birthday? Because I will be breaking my new daily routines for the next handful of days I hope to figure out how to get a for bit of exercise while I am there.

Yes, expect a blog tomorrow. How else will I be able to tell you how cheap gas is being sold in South Carolina these days? Oh, Barb could probably tell us today! 😁

Hope you all are staying healthy.

As I type this it’s 5:50am, I’ve had a poor night of sleep, eaten a double serving of pancakes and blackberries with maple syrup, and am considering going down into the basement to ride the trainer before starting work. I was going to go on an actual bike ride this morning, but I am feeling kinda sad and just can’t motivate myself to do it.

Happy birthday to me! 🎉🎉🎉

I wish the City would finally pick up my yard bags so I can stop removing the bags of dog shit that inconsiderate dog owners have been depositing into them.

There, I feel a little bit better.

Apparently hand sawing is a decent workout for a 54-year-old man because my AppleWatch gave me more credit for yesterday’s hour of yard work than for the four hours I spent doing yard work on Saturday. Go figure.

Birthdays on Wednesdays are bad enough, but thanks to Coronavirus I can’t comfortably gather with others at a bar to have celebratory drinks. Dangen! Oh well, such is life. If I can make it to 56 I will happily celebrate my birthday next year in a bar, or so I hope, under the leadership of a new president, or so I hope. Other than trainer riding and work I don’t have anything else planned for today. I am trying to figure out if I am going to stay at home and do my normal Wednesday routine of Top Chef with Betsy, or finding fun elsewhere.

That’s all I have.
Time to go work off a couple of pancakes.

Hope you are all having a happy and healthy week.

I kicked ass at playing the role of “lazy American” last night! After “clocking out” and then reheating leftovers for dinner, I plopped my ass on the couch and watched videos all night long. Okay, I did fail to be completely lazy, because I also put away the clothes I washed in the morning, washed my day’s worth of dirty dishes, and did 45 minutes on the trainer. 🤷🏻‍♂️

As I type this I’ve just finished eating a breakfast of more leftovers, this time a tater tot casserole I made over the weekend. In a few minutes when I am done pecking out this post I’ll be getting dressed to go outside to mow the lawn and do a little front yard cleanup when daybreak occurs.

Today was supposed to be the triumphant last day of my “100 Days of Swift” and “100 Days of SwiftUI” training. Sadly, or maybe not so sadly, I fell off the wagon about a week ago because I was too busy trying to actually write my own Swift code in SwiftUI for “XYZ Corp”. Turns out writing yourself is harder than following along with training, so maybe I am actually learning it now? 🤷🏻‍♂️ Guess what, the fact that one hundred days have passed means that we’ve been battling the pandemic for more than one hundred days, with no end in sight. ☹️

Hope you all have a good Tuesday, and that you are remaining healthy.

Tuesday Tale of the Tape: 193.2 pounds (-2.2 from last week’s weigh-in); if only I had remembered to weigh myself before eating breakfast! 🤦🏻‍♂️😂

Take Two! After picking up my iPad the screen rotated, locked up, Safari crashed, and none of the post I had been typing had been automatically saved. 😡 I’m now using a hopefully more-reliable text editor.

Due to my own accord this weekend beat me up.

On Saturday I passed on the fun option of riding bikes with Bonnie in order to continue to make progress in the back yard. After doing yard work on Friday morning I allowed myself to start at the unbelievably late hour of 7:00am; over four hours later I could do no more. During that time I did a lot of pulling of English ivy, lopping of bushes, cutting of tree branches, and lugging of yard waste bags to the the curb. Hopefully the City will pick up yard waste today, as I now have three weeks’ worth of debris for them to collect. Keeping in mind that I am but an army of one in this effort the yard is looking better, but ever so slowly. With four hours of manual labor under my belt, I allowed myself food and relaxation for the remainder of the day and evening.

Yesterday I braved the heat and went out to Covington for the Black Sheep hash. It was hot, but at least the trail wasn’t ungodly long (a little more than four miles). I did get a bit of a briar slice on the back of my left hand, but the most damage I did to myself was when I attempted to jog through the woods on a hiking path and took a substantial tumble after kicking an unseen root. My fall landed me briefly on my palms, but the brunt of the fall was taken by my right hip (hip in bike wreck 2011). Unsurprisingly I am sore in those regions this morning. As I am wont to do I skipped the “on after”, a swimming pool gathering at someone’s house, and returned home. I thought that I could be productive last night, but soon after eating dinner I passed out on the futon until about 10:00pm, and then waddled into the bedroom to finish off the night.

No manual labor or hashing are in my future today. Instead I am going to play the roles of “employee of XYZ Corp” by day, and “lazy American” by night.

Hope that you had a healthy and happy weekend.