Well... It has certainly been a while, hasn't it my loyal readers? (As if you exist) I've officially earned the designation as worlds most infrequent blogger. To the point where I get emails from blogger in several different languages just to see if I've croaked or somehow changed my native language. Fortunately I've managed to log-in once a year, and retain my nifty-neato old school domain which is awesome.

So, what's to report? Gosh, 8 blog free years, lets see...

I've been through 4 different jobs at the same company, got myself a hot ass girlfriend, and bought a house. Everything else was pretty boring. Oh, and recently got a new bike. Guess that's pretty cool...

Oh and that health and wellness thing... TOTALLY worked. For like 30 seconds, then it TOTALLY un-worked. I'm amidst another stab at it, but so far only got back to where I started before. Turns out it takes longer to loose than to gain... Who knew.

So, internet... Love me again, but keep your expectations low. I'm going to continue to put things in you, and hope they don't suck too bad but try not to care one way or the other. Thanks for being a big internet where dopes like me can hide things that aren't important.

AM Fix

Here is a quick update on the "Year of Health and Wellness." So far the results have been about what I'd expected. I'm still stoked on the whole thing despite a couple of setbacks. The first thing speed bump was a couple day's of illness. I wasn't ready for that because it hadn't happened in the last 10 years. My first inkling was to blame the process, but that's stupid. The second thing that I hadn't completely thought through was how to handle vacation. Now, when I vacation with a certain group of people a lot of drinking is involved and it is of course, done on weekdays. The best rationale I could come up with is that a vacation is a vacation from everything, including the YHAW (again, phonetically that's yee-haw). The problem with that is it will probably set me back a week or two, and I'm already running out of weeks this year to waste. So far though its been going good. This weekend, Memorial Day Weekend will be a real test though with the Indy 500 and return to Indiana, which will essentially be a return to Fraternity life. Lord Help me... One other thing that was kind of an add-on to YHAW was to quit coffee. I did that cold turkey up until recently, and I found it relatively easy. But, for the past three weeks or so I've noticed a very serious lack of productivity at work and a general imbalance of serotonin, or "happy brain cider", as I like to call it. It's the junk in your brain that makes it metaphysically possible for you to become happy. Basicailly that just means that I've been unhappy with life in general, and grumpier than usual, for no particular reason. Today I came into work and felt upset and crappy for no reason so I decided to cave and have a cup of jo. (Jo meaning coffee not this nice girl Jo that I work with...) Twenty minutes later I was a happy boy again. So at the risk of clinical depression I've decided to jump back on the coffee bandwagon and begin the mornings by having a comfy cup of coffee.

On the positive however, I've managed to stay true to the regiment of working out, eating right , and living clean. I’m feeling good, dropped a ton of weight and made nice with a hot chick (which, I might add, has been the best part). But she's a whole different story I'm not ready to write yet. :-)

Scary men

Ladies, Are men scary? Are there things about some men that make them scarier than others? I only ask because sometimes, being a man of "sturdy stature," (6'3" 235 as previously mentioned) I sometimes feel as though I'm getting a little extra attention by women walking down the street. And I'm not talking about the kind of attention that I would welcome, but rather I get the feeling that they're keeping tabs on the "scary man." I've made honest efforts on several occasions to avoid putting women into the situation where they even have to think about it. For example, one morning I was walking into work from a parking garage. This woman in a trench coat was walking about 10 - 15 feet in front me and at a regular pace. Now I don't know if she heard footsteps behind her or what but she pretended to look across the street where she was walking and check to see who was behind her. Upon seeing me she quickened her pace and began looking behind more frequently. Sensing her distress I crossed the street 100 yards before the stoplight so she wouldn't have to worry. After this occasion I noticed the same thing happening more and more, and each time I would try and accommodate their paranoia, by getting away from them as quickly as possible. Now that I was sensitive to the fact that this was happening, after a while I kinda began to take it as an insult. "What's so God damned scary about me?" I'd think. Are women just afraid in general, or just afraid of me?

Now... I understand the threat of rape. And yes, women do have something to worry about because there are those, scum-sucking, pieces of inhuman garbage out there, who defile our society by committing rape. And, I also understand that most of the time it's impossible to tell these vermin from the rest of us. But is the answer really to fear everything? Afraid go jogging at night? Afraid to walk by yourself downtown. Afraid to go grocery shopping by yourself? And, afraid to walk into the place where you work... Where does it end? Scared is no way to live, all the time...

Ok, I've gotten a little profound. Nothing pisses me off more than rape, except maybe child abuse... If anyone ever reads this, which I doubt will happen anyway, go here and read about some ways to avoid rape. You'll find that most of them start with confidance.

The Year or Health and Wellness

It's not every Easter when people have a life changing epiphany. I mean, Easter is kinda a lame time of the year for anything interesting to happen, aside from that whole resurrection of Christ thing that happened a couple thousand years ago. Anyway, I did. My "Epiphany" began with the realization that things weren't exactly how I'd expected them to be when I was younger. Granted 25 isn't what anyone would consider a ripe old age, but to a high school kid at 25 you may as well be 50. And that’s the time frame I'm talking about. High school... I try to dance around talking about high school now because for the first time it's actually starting to sound, well... Pathetic... As though there should be more to life than something that ended 7 years ago. But that’s beside the point... In High school I pictured myself looking like the guy that I saw in the mirror for the rest of my life. It now takes pictures and almost meditation to recall exactly what the little punk actually looked like. Basically, the 1995 version of myself still stood 6'3" tall but only weighed a mere 165 lbs. The most recent scale reading is 235 lbs. That’s a difference of 70 lbs. I jokingly explain this by using the cliche of the freshmen 15, where as I had the freshman 50... Always good for a giggle… So I realized exactly, how much weight I’d gained, figured out why and commited myself to doing something about it. Thus was born, "Andy’s Year of Health and Wellness." What this entails is:
1. The elimination of self-degrading habits.
2. Developing a lifestyle conducive to keeping hospitable surroundings.
3. Develop the domestic arts.
4. Find outlets for my creative juices. This dumb site being on of those…
I sound like a textbook sometimes so for those of you, like me, who hate bull shit I’ll break it down in human terms.

I want to stop smoking. If there is only one thing that I walk away from this year with I’d like it to be smoke free. No relapses, no hey I can have just one… Done, for good…

I want to stop being such a slob… I love to entertain. I enjoy having people around, especially at my apartment. And I’m finally fed up with being embarrassed when the place is lets say "unclean." I don’t mean that in terms of a bit soiled… But rather in terms of the way that people would scream "unclean" at lepers in bible stories and on Monty Python.

I want to learn to cook. For the past two years I’ve almost literally done nothing but eat out. At restaurants I mean… ("Oooooohhhh he’s naughty…" Yeah that’s right, get used to it…)

And finally, I want to do something interesting with what I know… My job bores the piss out of me most of the time and I’ve got to find somewhat to take what I know about the web, multimedia, pop culture, and myself to develop something amazing just for me… No other creative influences, no help, and no holds barred. What I often like to refer to as balls to the wall multimedia.

The unofficial rules are:
1. No beer on weekdays
2. Work out every day that it is humanly possible
3. Be outside whenever it is humanly possible
4. No F’n Nintendo… Playstation, Xbox, Atari, commodore whatever you want to call it… It’s all Nintendo to me
5. No smoking
6. Cook for myself or anyone else that will eat what I make on every possible occasion
7. Pay close attention to smart people no matter what they have to say.
8. Ask questions if you don’t understand. Even if it will make you look stupid.
9. Write down every Idea no matter how dumb it is.

Nobody understands better than I, that rules are made to be broken, but that’s why I consider them unofficial rules. Every lawyer understands that the interpretation of the rule makes all the difference in how difficult it is to break, and how much you can get away with. Being that these are "unofficial" rules they’re easy to break. Purposefully… Otherwise I’d just be beating myself up all the time.

So this was my epiphany, and has become my challenge. Its timeline is one year, Easter to Easter. At which time I’ll sit down and re-evaluate how much longer it should continue, if at all, and what progress, if any, has been made. I’m not doing any of this because I’m self conscious, or vane, or unhappy with myself, just because it’s time. Some people clime mount Everest, but I’ll start with baby steps for now.

This one is gross so be forewarned... So I'm in the shower this morning... Minding my own business... When I hear this clank behind me... At first I though something had fallen out of my off of my water faucet or something like that. So I turn around and everything looks fine except one thing. There was now a penny lying on the floor of the tub... So I'm thinking, hmmm wonder where that came from... I dismissed the obvious right away (you know what I mean) because there is no way something could weasel its way in there with out my knowing. So I began to think about where this penny might have come from. I think it may have been stuck to my leg or something. The disturbing part about all of this is that I've never before had to ask myself the question, "did that just fall out of my ass?" I told ya... still glad you read it? Don't boke Jenny.

This is more fun than rolling in slop.