Every weekend I’ve had a house project, though it’s all been about the same thing: fixing the plumbing. Cleaning the basement was about getting space for the plumber to work. Taking books to the used book store is about the same thing. Well, the plumber is finally finished and we’ve been waiting on the contractor who is buried in work. So, instead of waiting for him to tear out all the old galvanized pipe, I decided to do it myself. I covered myself in rusty water and bits of metal for most of the day, after going to the gym of course.

The biggest surprise of the day was how well my $20 reciprocating saw from Harbor Freight worked. I didn’t even have to borrow a real Sawzall. The metal cutting blade that came with it was kind of crap and flew off into never-never land but after I got some name brand blades at the hardware store it worked just fine. The In any case, I got a lot of pipe out of the basement and in the driveway.

That’s my day and I have more work to do tomorrow. I decided I deserved a bacon cheeseburger at Stepping Stone. It was surprisingly good, though the PBR could have been colder.

My evening was capped off by playing Aurora Feint on my iPhone. Hooray, what an exciting life.

I guess they finally came out with a blog client for WordPress that runs on the iPhone. I’m trying it out now.

I just got back from the the gym owners’ house. I had to check out their Wii because it wasn’t powering up. I don’t think anyone with any heart could leave a couple with a 7-year-old and a broken Wii. Fortunately, it just took a little jiggling of the wires and the Wii was up and running. I stuck around while the kid proved how bad I am at Mario Kart and Lego Indy Jones. Just something else to make me feel old.

Update: Blogging on the iPhone sure makes for short sentences. I just went back and read this and I’m not sure how I feel about that. Ah, well, I think I’ll stick to the regular laptop so I don’t wear out my typing finger on the iPhone. Now to decide whether to learn French or Spanish.

A group of us, including Nurse Tiff of the Stink-eye and non-updating-blog, went out to eat after the workout. I’m always rooting for dive bars, and Crackerjack in NW is quite the dive. I don’t mind going to local dives for the most part, but the drinkers at Crackerjack look a bit too serious for me. In contrast, the back deck at the Crackerjack is a nice area with picnic benches and usually full of neighbors and their kids. It’s funny how different it feels from the inside.

In any case, we went to Laurelwood which is nicer and while I wanted a hamburger, I ate a pulled pork sandwich instead because we all know how much healthier that is for you. And I had a beer. One beer is usually what it takes to make me want to sleep in. Two and I’m usually OK. I don’t know how that works.

Somehow I was clicking on random links IN MY OWN BLOG since WordPress puts them there, and I got to something called, “Real Men Like Curves.” Along with this there’s all sorts of links about cheeseburgers and even a section titled, “How many cheeseburgers does it take to scare a model?” I’m not sure what this is, but somehow I think I can get behind it.

So for those who don’t do Crossfit, Fran is the name of a benchmark workout. 21 thrusters, 21 pullups, 15 thrusters, 15 pullups, 9 thrusters, and 9 pullups. My throat felt dry afterwards and it was from breathing so hard during the workout. In fact, your chest can hurt the day after the workout for the same reason. I think I was the slowest in our class, but I still improved my time and I even did more weight on the thrusters. The “prescribed weight” is 95# for the thruster and I did 85#. Last time I did 75#, so that’s a 13% increase. I’m not sure that was a wise increase because of the difficulty and because my knees hurt like hell right now. It even made me miss going to the The Dark Knight with hotties from the gym (you know who you are).

I almost missed going to the gym because I was at work late. They’re actually making me work for the money and that’s quite an annoyance. I also heard a rumor that the contractor thinks it’s going to be hundreds of thousands of dollars to repair our house. While I trust him and I know there’s lots of repairs that need to be done, F*CK*NG H*LL that’s a lot of money. I guess it’s time to get a loan.

My iPhone continues to annoy me, but I still love it. I guess I may need that therapist after all.

My weight fluctuates about 5 pounds. I’ve read that’s common with males. I had a goal of losing 20 pounds from my peak of 185 but it’s kind of hard to pin down a weight when it moves around like that. So I figured I’d use the weight right after my post-workout shower. I also decided that I wouldn’t say I reached my goal of 165 unless I dipped below it. Well, I finally did it today. One-hundred-and-sixty-four pounds. Count it.

You can imagine there are a lot of attractive women at the gym. And really, who could be more attractive than someone who makes cupcakes? I found out today when someone gave me chocolate chip cookies. Of course, they were so good that I ended up like the cookie monster and chomped them all into little bits that fell out of my muppet mouth. Well, not really, I didn’t let more than a crumb fall and now I wonder if I’m ever going to see 164 again.

Actually, I’ve kind of slowed down in my weight reduction and I’ve been eating more Mexican food lately. I found out what what a “sope” is and a chavindeca (two corn tortillas with cheese and meat melted inside with some avocado as well). What they are is my downfall. Really quite tasty and probably not that good for me. I was sticking to salads for lunch for the most part and I only have a cheeseburger every couple of weeks. I’ve even avoided fried chicken and only had it once in the past few months. Quite odd for the guy who liked to go to Popeye’s several times a week.

But really, I’ve had salads at Jack-in-the-Box (good), Baker’s Burgers aka Assburger (not too good), a strip club (not a good choice in any sense), and other various and sundry places including the cafeteria at work. I’m surprising myself at the number of salads I can eat and not feel like I’m starving, but I’m being tempted by things that actually have flavor, like bacon. Mmmm, bacon.

Not much today, either. I especially had nothing when I was watching Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives except a bit of hunger. I was wondering if I should go to some of these places but who wants to travel to EBFE just for a hamburger? And what if it’s the best hamburger I’ve ever had? I’d have to go to Houston, or Peoria, or Cincinnati, or Armpitistan just for another shot at the best hamburger ever? I think I’ll keep taking awful business trips to San Jose for the possibility of going to In-N-Out.

I could talk about the hike we took this morning to Mt. Hamilton in the Gorge (across from Beacon Rock) or about the block party we had today, but I just got off the phone with someone who was updating me on my uncle’s condition and it’s nearly 11PM. Basically, she’s a family friend and she just told me about all of her worries and that I shouldn’t do anything.

Basically, I have nothing positive to say about the situation. I may get to take another last minute trip, this time to Spokane. There’s no In-N-Out up there, but there is a Dick’s Hamburgers. I may have to drive my ass up there and have them tell me to my face that as as first-cousin once removed, I have no say. I’ll try to set things up as best as I can and watch from the sidelines. This could get messy. It’s a good thing there’s other positive things going on in my life to offset this all.

I took two boxes of books to the reseller and they bought quite a few of them. The ones they didn’t take I put in the recycling bin. I hate to do that to books that could possibly be of use to someone, but I’m not sure what to do with coffee-table books of “Buddhist Art of Japan.” I’m just happy to get rid of them, really. They even wouldn’t take one that is rare and possibly worth something because the spine was cracked. What do they expect from a scholarly pamphlet from the 50’s? Powell’s books is kind of a disappointment to me because they’ve become so large that they only sell new books and almost-new books. Any little defect and they reject the book. But I guess it can’t be like it was in the past when we could buy old science fiction books for fifty cents.

I rescued the pamphlet and I’m going to try to put it on eBay. We’ll see how well that works.

I can’t believe a simple business trip would make me feel so old and creaky. My knee hurt from the flight down and today I was so tired I couldn’t concentrate and my back started to knot up. I was fine by late afternoon (and a couple of naps) but really, this is what I can expect from a sixteen-hour workday?

You know things aren’t quite right when you start your day off with a 7:30AM meeting and you finally get home at 11PM and all you’ve had to eat for dinner was some cashews and a couple of cookies. Especially if you had to work through dinner, watching people trying to configure a computer that shouldn’t be so hard to fix. Oh, and lunch was a Jr. Bacon Cheeseburger at the Wendy’s stand in the airport which you ate standing in line to get on the plane that you barely caught. At least barely catching the return flight wasn’t so bad because I GOT HOME.

When I got home I noticed that my gateway computer had rebooted itself. I’m not quite sure that it’s working quite right, which is another joy in itself. Also, I guess while I was away, my mother was sick in bed with a 102°F fever. Fortunately my sister was around and I don’t know what all went on. All I can tell you is that a trip to San Jose is probably a lot more pleasant if you see more than the airport, the rental car agency, and the conference room of the company you’re going to visit. Even if they bribe you with a half-dozen peanuts and a day-old pot of coffee.

It happens. I’m tired, I’m a bit stressed, and it doesn’t make me all that happy. I’m still not sure what I should do about visiting my uncle, the plumber is working on the house and that means some disruption at home, and I’m supposed to do something at work tomorrow that isn’t going to turn out well. In fact, it’s looking like someone has to go to a customer site to get yelled at, and it looks like that someone might be me.

Oh, well, I have the X-Files Movie to look forward to. I’m very much a geek about it and I my have to go see it on opening day. It’s just the sort of silliness I need right about now.

I was picking on the 24YO nurse at the gym because, well, she’s 24. It only took me this long to figure out that she’s TWENTY YEARS YOUNGER THAN ME. I think I mentioned how I was shredding old phone records and I found calls to my college girlfriend from 1984, the year she was born. Yeesh.

Well, she should be worried because I’m trying to figure out how to become a youth vampire. She’ll just get all dowdy like a librarian and want to yell at the kids to get off her lawn and I’ll start wearing a goatee and a porkpie hat and riding a fixed-gear bicycle around. I already see the error in my current plan, because most of the librarians I know are kind of hipsters or in the counterculture as well. I think every librarian I know has more tattoos and ferrets than I’ve ever though of having. I’ll have to rethink this plan. Also, I’m not sure that vampirism really works in any sense other than to get a guy committed or put into prison.

I’m also in a secret race to get a muscle-up before some other people at the gym. These other people are rather competitive, and it’s much easier for me to try to do it without letting them know they’re in a competition. The initial goal was to get one before the Head Honcho’s birthday in August, but these goals are all kind of mutable. The downside to being in a competition that someone else doesn’t know about is that all I can really do is go up to them if I “win” and say, “Ha HA!” without really explaining to them what I’m talking about. Most people think I’m odd enough without going up to them and saying, “Ha HA!” but I guess at this point it probably wouldn’t hurt, either.