Friday, May 30

Man, I’m really tired this morning.  I suppose I can attribute that to the fact that I didn’t get any sleep last night.  I wasn’t feeling overly well and that didn’t combine nicely with the fact that my brain refused to shut off after watching the Lost finale.  Very well done episode, perhaps the best of the season.

I had physical therapy yesterday afternoon and made it up to 40 minutes walking on the treadmill.  My target goal is 45 minutes so I should hit that no problem next week barring any setbacks.

Trying to get a little code written before the daily deluge of meetings and people vying for my time and attention.

Thursday, May 29

• LOST finale tonight.  I’m bittersweet about it.  I’m excited but I know we’ll be left in the lurch for several months.  Prediction: Ben somehow escapes the Orchid and ends up in the Sahara (since he is wearing an Orchid parka in the “flash-forward” from a few episodes back.
• Big issue arose at work yesterday. Not sure on a solution, but I can’t hold back my dev team completely until it is resolved.

Disappointment

Dealing with disappointment at work.  The aphorism “Honor the position, respect the person” will be my guiding principle for the next day or two.

Wednesday, May 28

• Yesterday was not overly hectic at work.  Today I’ll make up for that as we have an internal sprint release as well as planning for the next sprint and additional meetings.
• I’ve switched from 2-4 cups of coffee in the morning to one cup at home and then drinking green tea at work.  It supposedly is very good for one’s self and it tastes good.  Let’s see if it gives me energy without causing the jitteriness that I get from too much caffeine.
• Yesterday afternoon in physical therapy I increased my walking time on the treadmill to 36 minutes (1.5 speed).  She introduced a “mini-bridging” exercise; I’m not sure if that was the culprit but I was very sore last night, to the point where I needed to take something.  I’m going to hold off on that exercise for now.  This morning I feel pretty decent.

Weight Check

So I find myself in a position of not being able to do any real cardio exercise due to my disc problem, and it will probably be quite a while until I can start doing something; I’ll never be the same again.

So given my sedentary habits, I’ve put on some weight, as one might expect.  I’m going to try and control my eating habits (since that’s about all I can do) and try and get my weight down.

Weekly Check-in
Weight: 199 lbs
BMI: 27.0 (overweight)

Tuesday, May 27

A mostly enjoyable long weekend.  Saturday morning was spent garage saleing and we were rewarded with lunch at Olive Garden.  Grilled up some beef (rib roast) for dinner; probably over-spiced it, but still enjoyed.  We ate out on the deck and my back is just not ready for that (our chairs and table are low so I need to hunch over to reach the table).  All in all, I had some inflammation flare-ups throughout the weekend.  When I felt good, I felt great; when I had a flare-up I felt miserable.

On Sunday we went over to a BBQ in the next neighborhood.  The kids had fun running around and playing with the other kids.  There would be a time where I’d feel the need to be constantly supervising everything but I’m more at ease now and trusting.  I ate way too much food and paid for it by not sleeping overly well.

Monday H (and Pauline) were in the local memorial day parade with her daisy girl scout troop.  MJ and I staked out a great viewing location.   Afterwards we went over to visit with BC & AC, whom we hadn’t seen in quite a while.  BC is due a few weeks after Pauline so it will be nice to have baby girls roughly the same age.

Last night I put in “Play: The Videos” by Peter Gabriel, which I had borrowed from the library.  I was pretty underwhelmed.  I’ll watch concert videos until I pass out but my interest for “pre-packaged” MTV-style videos is pretty low at this point.

Today is code-freeze day for our current sprint so I need to get moving…

15 Minutes a Day

I’m going to adopt a practice of writing lyrics for 15 minutes every day.  I’m just going to write and get some practice from which I’m sure I’ll have some pretty bad stuff, but hopefully some good things will pop out.  I may occasionally choose to share some of the lyrics I come up with here in the blog.

Friday, May 23

• Haven’t written in a few days. Haven’t had much time nor much of anything groundbreaking to write about.
• Last night I brought the Volvo in for oil change, tire rotation and inspection. Fortunately there weren’t many surprises.
• Beginning this morning by installing Oracle SQL Developer so I can run some queries against our Datamart to put together some use cases so that we can decide on the proper query heuristics.

Monday

• Not overly excited about the fact that it’s Monday morning.  I know we’re going to have yet another change in direction, and I of course will do what it takes to adjust but I have some frustration.  The question is does my frustration warrant me taking action or not.
• Starting to get concerned that my cortisone shots might be wearing off.  Need to keep careful attention to this.

Friday Morning

I was cut off by a van today.

The van had a bumper sticker on the back.

It read “Safety Is My Goal”.

I do not want to be presumptuous, but I am going to go out on a limb anyway and surmise that the driver is failing to achieve that goal.

I wanted to call and report him, as it was a commercial van, but I didn’t have a cellphone.

Even if I did, I wouldn’t call while I’m driving.

You see, safety is my goal as well.