London in Six days.

And I am crawling out of my skin. I’m ready to be there. Ughh.

Dave and I have gone on a crash weight loss problem and general being better fit routine. I’ve lost about ten pounds and have about another three to go before we go to London. We want to get dance floor ready. I have to say it’s really, really hard. Here’s what we’ve been doing.

No drinking.
Running in the morning.
Working out in the day.
Dave isn’t eating gluten right now, I haven’t gone that far.
No going out to dinner.
I’ve been bringing my lunch to work; I know what’s in it.

So far we’ve both done very well, the only problem is that we’re both a little bit light headed and short tempered. I’ve gone from 213 lbs to 203lbs and want to lose another three pounds before next Thursday. Dave is down to 162 lbs from over 170 lbs.

We look good and will hopefully stay that way unless we kill each other.

We’re looking at this as a life style change. When we come back from London we will be doing the same thing but not as aggressively. Our next big trip is Buenos Aries for Christmas and we want to look good there too.

So much work, so little time.

Miami Trip Day One.

Well this started off well. I’m on my way to our annual fall meeting. I went to bed early and got up early for this. This time it’s in Miami. I usually fly United or USairways when I travel by air because I like my points. This trip I’ve had to go American airlines. Reason being is it was $200 compared to $400 on my preferred airlines. It’s also out of National airport which is much closer then Dulles.

Being the good boy that I am I got to the airport 2 hours before flight time, which was 12 noon. I checked in and was offered an upgrade for $90 bucks. For me that’s well worth sitting in the front of the bus for a two hour flight so I took it. I proceeded to check my bag in and go through security. I settled myself in at the RCC after a failed attempt to access the Admiral Club (American airlines lounge) and started surfing the net. I then get an alert saying the plane has been delayed. I’m in the Red Carpet Club which is very comfortable so I’m not too worried. I update my computer and then restart to check my email. The next thing I know the flight has been canceled.

WTF??

I call American and they put me on the next flight at 3:05pm. Not happy about that. I ask about my bags and the woman said that it would automatically be on the next flight. Now because I do not trust these people I go over to the American lounge and check. I saw that there was an earlier flight so I asked to be on it. The woman was quite nice and told me she would try but that I need to go pick my luggage up and recheck it.

WTF??

Recheck my baggage? United never made me do this. Seems that they do not have enough ground staff to figure out what to do when I flight is canceled so they just make you do it.

I then made a mad dash to the baggage claim and picked up my bag. Then ran back upstairs and went to the outside-curbside to recheck it. “Sir, it will not let me do it from here. You have to go back inside and do it”

WTF??

So inside I go and all of the sudden it’s really busy. Luckily the girl at the American lounge gave me priority access boarding pass which gets me in the first class line. Thank God! I’m sweating bullets at this point because I think I’m on standby for the earlier flight. I finally get my bag checked in and run back to the American lounge. The girl their confirms that I’m not on the earlier flight but that I’m confirmed on the 3:05 flight and she put me on the wait list for first (I’ve paid for it). She then tells me that if it doesn’t go through I will have to ask for a refund form at the gate.

WTF??

So now I’m at Friday’s having a 500 calorie meal and a beer writing this. And I haven’t even started my journey. I still have five days ahead of me. If this is the way the trip goes I will not be a happy camper.

At least I’m now staying at a place on the beach in Miami. That counts for something. I was supposed to be there for work tonight but I don’t think that’s going to happen. I will check-in and find a store nearby where I can get some breakfast supplies and fruit. I haven’t gotten to this weight by eating crap.

PS. I’m having the healthy meal at Friday’s, which is hard to do really. At Friday’s anyway.

Tomorrow I’ll fill in a little bit more about the trip. I’m not expecting great things to tell the truth.

And he's back.

Well let’s see, have I been busy since the last time I wrote here?

The answer is a resounding, YES!

I just dropped my mom off from a weekend that was a great success. She got in on Friday night and we went to Café Trope for dinner. It was nice and we got to visist for a bit. I do have to say that driving to Baltimore international airport on a Friday going through the city is about as much fun as being racked in the neither regions. It took about an hour and thirty five minutes to get there. I’m glad I left at five thirty for a seven ten pickup. As it was, I didn’t have to pay for parking because I was there under thirty minutes. We ended up just eating and then going to bed. We had a big day planned for Saturday.

You see my mother wasn’t the only mom in town. Dave’s mom is here from England, this is the whole reason we had a dinner party on Saturday night. The party was for eight with another joining us for dessert after. Here’s is what we had.

Watermelon salad with feta cheese, fennel, Arugula, toasted hazel nuts and a balsamic dressing for the starter.

Chicken Marbella marinated from the night before in a prune, olive, caper brown sugar, white wine and balsamic vinegar mixture. This was served with fresh fettuccini with a garlic, shaved almond, and olive oil sauce topped with poppy seeds. We also had a little cream spinach I whipped up.

For dessert we had a flourless chocolate torte with a fresh raspberry sauce and whipping cream with vanilla beans.

It was a huge success. Mom and I ended up staying on the roof talking after everyone else took off. Dave had to take his mom back to the burbs and all the other guys went out to town (the club).

The next day we had brunch at the Beacon bar and grill. This time it was the whole family, brother and sister-in-law and the baby. Sunday just turned out very nicely as did the whole weekend.

I had to take mom back to BWI yesterday in the afternoon but that wasn’t bad at all. I went to work that morning and listened to a presentation on VMware on the desktop and then meet Dave and Mom for lunch. I then dropped her off, went back to work and actually found parking right outside the building. That never happens.

I was a bit sad to see mom go, we had such a good time together and she so enjoys it up here.

This week I’m having dinner with Kiat at the Saint Regis tomorrow, having dinner with our friends Rob and Carlos on Thursday. Friday there is something to do but it’s date night so I’m not sure we’ll do it. Saturday we have three parties to go to. I think Sunday will be a go see a movie in the afternoon unless of course one of our friends shows up from the UK, which happens.

On another note, I’m finally feeling close to 100%. I’ve had a throat blossom in the back of my throat where my right ear drains into my throat. Now it only bugged me every so often so I thought it was allergies. Well we ended up going to the doctor for another issue and he put us on antibiotics. The back of my throat has almost cleared up completely. Seems I’ve had this thing for two or three months and just felt down the whole time but being me refused to accept that and still worked out and hung out with friend. All I have to say and now I feel like my old self again. Next time I know what to do if it happens again.

Our next trip it the UK in November together, I might have to go to Miami for work in October. We will then go to Buenos Aires for Christmas and Cape Town in October. There might be a New Zealand trip in there somewhere, we’ll see.

I think that’s enough to write for my come back. I’ll write about the restaurant on Thursday.

Cape Town accommodations

Dave and I started looking for places to stay for our big trips this year. The first challenge was getting affordable plane tickets to Buenos Aries, our fist destination, in December for the Christmas holiday. We originally wanted to leave on December the 23rd and come back on the 4th. We looked at a United flight which is direct from Washington Dulles but the price was close to 3k for a coach class ticket. That is way out of our price range. So I stated looking at alternative offerings from other airlines in the star alliance (we like our points)

We found Air Canada out of Toronto for about 1k each. It would be a trip from Washington National to Toronto to Buenos Aires. The problem is we were not sure we wanted to go so we procrastinated.

We shouldn’t have done that. The prices went up to close to what united was charging for those dates. We made up our minds to stay at home and see what was being offered by way of an esaver the week before Christmas.

But I wouldn’t let it die and one day decided to look around some more.

I found that if you left on the 25th and came back on the 5th the price dropped from $2,900.00 to $947.00 each. I called Dave and told him about it. We got the tickets within thirty minutes of that conversation. Which is good because I looked again after that and the price had gone up again to $2,900.00 for those dates too.

So now we have the tickets to Buenos Aires but no place to stay. This mirrored the situation we were in for Cape Town South Africa for March. I got us free tickets on points, including my sister coming out of Charlotte NC but we didn’t have a place to stay.

Dave and I decided to spend the weekend looking for places to stay, my job was Cape Town and his was Buenos Aires.

Let me tell you, this is not an easy or fast job. There are way too many places to look at on the internet.

I looked and looked and looked and sent off inquiries to a bunch of places but was getting discouraged. You see we need a place for the whole month. We have a staggered schedule of Dave and his mom, then Dave and my sister, then Dave my sister and me and then Dave and me with maybe some friends coming to stay from Brazil and the UK. We were very fortunate in the last couple of visits to get places to stay in the $100 to $150 a day range.

I wasn’t finding anything like that this time, it was all $300 to $ 500 a day for something we wanted to stay in and $200 a day for something we didn’t want to stay in on the bad side of town. I finally asked someone about a place in Bantry Bay. It was rented but they had another suggestion if I didn’t mind looking at it, and they offered a monthly rate.

We looked at it and it looked interesting. It was a three bedroom (we were looking at two bedrooms) with a roof deck and it was in the right location. Here is the link to the description.

Now here is the good part, we were offered it for the whole month for 22, 500 Rand, or about 3k or about $98 a night. Now what you have to know is that it normally rents for three times that even in the slow season so I wasn’t sure what was going on. Seems that the girl mistook the monthly rate paid if you stay for a year with the monthly rate if you only stay for a month and she quoted us the yearly/monthly rate by mistake. And they are standing by the mistake!! We couldn’t be happier. It was looking like lodging was going to cost around 7k to 8k for something we wanted to stay in. Oh happy days.

So now we’re still looking for a place to stay Christmas in Buenos Aires. Dave has a few leads and we are just waiting to hear back from them. I think we've narrowed it down to two in the same building.

Somewhere in all this we have a life with work and friends happening too. Never a dull moment in our lives.

Playa Del Carmen

Rob over Christmas “We need to go to Playa Del Carmen”

Me, calling his bluff “Ok, how about over 4th of July”

Rob, calling my bluff “Fabulous! I’ll set it up”

Me in my mind “ Oh f*ck, now we really have to go”

Rob and Mikko have been telling us for years how great Playa was (We’ll call it Playa from now on to shorten things even if it does just mean beach in Spanish) for years. They have gone for New Years and other times of the year. We’ve done places like Rio over New Years. So finally we were nailed down on a time to go.

It was one of the best times we’ve had. And that was a huge surprise.

For some reason Dave and I had this notion that Mexico was not a destination that we wanted to visit. There are more exotic places in the world that we wanted to go to but a few things happened along the way over the last year that changed that thought.

The dollar SUCKS against most currencies!!

Fuel prices have driven plane tickets to the point of being ridiculous. I checked a ticket to CLT from DCA and it was $800. That’s an hour trip!!

So both of those reasons made going to Mexico much more attractive. We used points to get the plane tickets and the peso is still a good value so the room was cheap and everything else was cheapish too even though we were in tourist central.

The days consisted of getting up at 11ish and going to the beach to lounge around at the most amazing beach club until about 6 drinking bear and eating lunch. We would then go back and take a little nap before heading to dinner at around 9pm. Then it was time to go to the local gay bar called Playa 69. Funny great name I think. And we would stay there until the wee hours of the night go home and then do it again.

This happened every day except Monday when Playa 69 was closed so this forced us to get some sleep that night. I also went deep sea fishing on Thursday so I had a little bit of an early night on Wednesday because I had to be up and out of the house for the boat at around 7am.

This was pretty much the vacation and we enjoyed it greatly.

I especially liked the fishing even though I feed the fish coffee three times while we were on the very small boat out on the very rough sea. Ughhh!!!! Luckily I didn’t eat any solid food that morning. Still we caught 7 fish between the 8 of us, which was 7 more than what some of the other boats caught. We got a sail fish which I’ve never seen caught before. It was at least 4 feet long but we let it go (Bill fish are endangered) and we also caught a Mahi Mahi that was just as big. I caught a mackerel and a barracuda. When we caught the Mahi Mahi two other boats come over to see us pull it in and when we got to the beach 20 people showed up to look at it. Seems no one had caught a Mahi that big in six months. Everyone was so envious. I was so proud of my friends and their catches.

Also, as soon as I put my feet back on the ground my sea sickness went away. What a relief. I don’t remember feeling that bad and I hate throwing up.

That night we took half of the Mahi Mahi and a Barracuda back to the flat and proceeded to have a dinner party for 14 with plenty of fish. All in all a very good day.

Me to Rob “We are soooo coming back”

Rob to me “We knew you would”

So, that was our trip to Playa Del Carmen. I left out anything that was R rated or worse. Those are stories for in person.

I won!

Seems I’m going to be in Paris this weekend without a playmate. I entered a contest (http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=834270 I’m ckc123) and, wonder of wonders, I won. I leave on Thursday night and come back on Sunday. I’m staying here: http://www.hotel-saintmerry.com/english.html

This is a great little get-a-way. I tried to get some people to meet me there but it happened so last minute that a ticket is now in the 5k price range because all of the coach seats are taken.

Last Thursday I read that flyertalk.com was having a give-a-way of 20 seats on a brand new luxury airlines called openskies.com. They are being started by British Airways. The new service starts on the 19th so I will be on the inaugural flight. I entered and then the next day found out I was one of the chosen to go. This gave me six days to get this prepared. So I have everything set up and I’m ready to go now. I’ve figured out where the hotel is and found a nice bistro that a friend recommended.

I’ll write about it when I get back.

Woodstock and the Catskills. Fun in the New York countryside.

Well we got invited to visit some friends in Bearsville New York. They live in NYC but have a weekend house about two hours outside of the city in the Catskills. It was an amazing, relaxing weekend.

I got off of work a little bit early and met Dave at Union station for the train ride up to Pen Station in New York. I have to say that Amtrak really, really sucks but this trip wasn’t all that bad. We sat there and read while the country side went by. They even had someone pushing a cart up and down the aisles selling drinks and food so we had a glass of wine. We got to NYC and had about an hour to wait until we got the train out to Woodstock.

We’ve always heard of Poughkeepsie, Yonkers and Hoboken but they always seemed to be funny little names with no actual place to connect them to. Well the train was going to Poughkeepsie and we went through Yonkers and Hoboken, it’s cool to know that they exist and where they are now.

Once we got to the train stop and got off, one of our friends was there to pick us up. About twenty minutes later we were at the weekend house. What a lovely little house it was/is, it is on a couple of archers of land and has been recently renovated from the ground up from its original 1927 construction. It’s open and airy and you can’t be in the house anywhere without seeing the forest outside.

We had dinner waiting for us which was pretty amazing considering we got there so late. Lamb burgers in pita bread with yogurt sauce. It was really, really good. We stayed up a little bit and then went to bed for a nice sleep in the country side silence.

Saturday we got up to coffee and the French open on the TV. I haven’t watched tennis in so long I didn’t even know who the people were on the court. It was still fun to watch. We then went to brunch in a little town down the way that I can’t remember the name of. It was very nice and very country. The price was a bit steep I thought for the area but not too bad. We then headed for the village of Woodstock just to see it. It seems that the whole Woodstock legend is just that, legend. The festival had gotten so big that the original farm outside of Woodstock could no longer hold it so they had to move it forty three miles away to another farm that could near Bethel, NY. Things you never knew.

The village is still full of hippies and your hippie want-a-be’s.

We walked a little way after getting a great parking spot and went straight to a clothing store. The store is run by the neighbors of the friends that we stayed with so we socialized a bit and then started looking around.

This store is exactly what we want it DC. It had cool, funky, not found in DC clothes and Dave and I immediately feel in love with it. $250 dollars later and one pair of shorts and two shirts I was a very happy boy. Funky cool clothes to wear at the next party. Love it.

We then got some ice cream and walked around a little bit. There was this strange guy walking around that kind of seemed to be following us. It was a little bit spooky because everywhere we went he was there. We decided it was time to go back to the house and have a nap before dinner. But first we had to see some art by a friend of theirs in a showing at a gallery near their house.

It was amazing stuff and if we had an extra 30k lying around I’m sure we would have gotten three or four of the paintings. The problem is we need new windows before we need new paintings. Still, if we win the lottery we’ll be back to purchase some of it. Very abstract landscapes. Loved it.

After the nap it was cocktail time. Wine for me, I’ve kind of gone off vodka. The neighbors came over for drinks and chatting and socializing. They brought a whole picture of cosmos. Oh my! We sat on the screened porch for a good long time while a thunder storm went over head. The neighbors went home to cook and we started cooking too.

We had tender loin stuffed with mushrooms, asparagus (which was a little bit burned but interesting just the same) and some kind of starch that’s escaping me right now; I think it was couis couis. All with lots of lovely wine. It was a very relaxing evening just having dinner with friends and enjoying the tranquility of the country.

The next morning was brunch with some Campaign to fight off the little bit of a hangover we all had from the wine the night before. We then just read the New York Times and chilled on the porch again until it was time to head back to the city. We had a bus (yes you got that right, we rode a bus home!) that was leaving from Pen station at 8pm so we left the house to drive back around 3:30/4:00. It takes a little under 2 hours to get back to the city.

We ended up getting there a bit early and after saying good bye and thank you to the boys we decided to eat before getting on the bus. We stopped at this Irish pub across from the station thinking it might not be too expensive and that we could get some real food. One house salad, one ceaser salad, one fish dish, one chicken dish, one glass of wine and two pints of beer and forty five minutes later we were presented with a check for $100. Mind you the food was good and all but it was more like a $50 dinner, not $100. Oh well, it was mid town NYC.

We then decide that we should get to the bus a little bit early just in case it was full. Silly us, there was a rather large line to get on the bus when we got there. Once we finally got on board I think we got the last two seats together.

A few observations about the DC to NY bus.

1. They give you water, which is nice considering it only cost $20 for the whole trip.

2. They play movies, which sucks if you want to sleep.

3. You can only go number 1 in the bathroom. This was fine with me. Seems number 2 stinks up the whole back of the bus.

4. They will take a break in Delaware even though there was a vote that told them not to.

5. It takes a lot longer than the train. About four and a half hours to five hours.

6. It drops off at two places in DC, Eye Street and 14th and in Dupont Circle.

Once we got to Dupont Circle it was a matter of a five minute walk to our house. We finally got in the door around 12:30am and were completely tired because all the sleep we were supposed to get on the bus didn’t happen because of the movies. Around 1ish we finally started to wind down enough to get to sleep.

Monday sucked, I didn’t get to run that morning and showed up at the office at 9:30, I’m usually there around 7:45 so that was late for me. Fortunately I’ve was able to work out that afternoon and have been able to run every morning this week since.

I also had my performance review on Tuesday. It went well.

That’s all the excitement for now.

Do you dress like a Douchebag?

Check out this site.

Bread, the other white meat.

Ok, so do you like bread? I mean really like bread. So much bread that you think there is something else with it but you’re really not sure. And do you like to spend a whole lot on bread? I mean just bread? If that’s the case you will love the restaurant that we just had Estella’s birthday lunch at. It’s a new tapas place in Georgetown on M Street called Bodega.

Not that it was bad, the bread they served as table bread was quite good with the olive oil. Not so much for the bread with the sandwiches, big hard baguettes. Mind you, I know it’s a tapas restaurant but we were there for lunch and needed something fast so we choose one of the lunch “specials” which consisted of all sandwiches.

When they arrived we all looked at them and the first thing someone said was “that’s a whole lot of bread”, and it was! The flavor was great but for $14 I want a little more middle in my sandwich.

We also got Sangria. I know its lunch and all but we decided since it was Estella’s birthday we would indulge. Not that we needed to worry because it was really like drinking cool aid. We all felt a bit ripped off at the end of the meal, where was the buzz? It was $24 for a pitcher between six of us. The pitcher, when it showed up, was about half the size of what we expected, it was refreshing but that was about it.

So all in all what I would call a very disappointing lunch. The people at the table where great but I don’t think any of us will be in a hurry to go back. If you want really good tapas go to Jaleo in downtown DC. Well worth it.

Midge Ure and the power of song

For awhile now I’ve liked Ultra Vox the group from the 80’s. There are a few songs that I remember from then and I liked them all. Then awhile back Dave played Midge Ure (lead singer) and the best of Ultra Vox. It brought back memories and I stated listening to Midge as if he were a new artist and with much interest especially his CD entitled Breath.

I like Breath so much that I’ve pretty much been listening to it to and from work for the last month. I do this every so often when a CD really hits a cord. This is the way my mind works.

There are a couple of reasons that I like this CD. The songs are absolutely amazing and at this point in my life they mean something profound.

You see I’m getting to the point in my life where I need a change. Now this change could take on many, many different aspects so I’m not sure exactly what the change could/should be. I did rule out one change after the last two weeks; Dave. I don’t want to change that at all, I would like to change with him though.

So, the title song is called Breath and it has me enthralled. The lyrics, the melody, the composition, they are just exactly what I need right now. Here are the lyrics;

With every waking breath I breathe
I see what life has dealt to me
With every sadness I deny
I feel a chance inside me die

Give me a taste of something new
To touch to hold to pull me through
Send me a guiding light that shines
Across this darkened life of mine

Breathe some soul in me
Breathe your gift of love to me
Breathe life to lay ¹fore me
Breathe to make me breathe

For every man who built a home
A paper promise for his own
He fights against an open flow
Of lies and failures, we all know

To those who have and who have not
How can you live with what you¹ve got?
Give me a touch of something sure
I could be happy evermore

Breathe some soul in me
Breathe your gift of love to me
Breathe life to lay ¹fore me
To see to make me breathe

Breathe your honesty
Breathe your innocence to me
Breathe your word and set me free
Breathe to make me breathe

This life prepares the strangest things
The dreams we dream of what life brings
The highest highs can turn around
To sow love¹s seeds on stony ground

Breathe
Breathe

Breathe some soul in me
Breathe your gift of love to me
Breathe life to lay ¹fore me
To see to make me breathe

Breathe your honesty
Breathe your innocence to me
Breathe your word and set me free
Breathe to make me breathe

For some reason this has gotten to me lately. I’m not sure if I’m having a mid-life crisis or what but it’s made me realize I need some change in my life.

Another song on the CD is called free and it’s had the same effect. It’s almost the feel of when you where a teenager and you knew you had your whole life ahead of you. You were free, I kind of feel like I want that too right now. I want to feel the way I did then. Here I would put the lyrics here but I can’t seem to find them using Google. (I thought you could find anything on Google!)

Luckily I’ve come to my senses of late and realized the changes I need all have to do with me and not the people around me. And I made one big change so far.

No more smoking, even on the weekends. I want to Breath and be Free!

This is the beginning of some changes in my life that I hope I can keep going forward with. Mainly I want to be healthier physically and mentally. The first one will be much easier than the second. I get a little bit screwy every so often and go out on my own tangent. It takes some pretty big shit to get me centered again. I’m getting tired of having to go through the shit to get better, so I’m going to try to not even get into that space anymore. This will be tough but it’s an effort that will be well worth it.

So that’s it for now, had a great time at Rehoboth beach last weekend but that’s another story all together.

Carrie Bradshaw moment

Did you ever wonder how to screw up a good thing fast?

Here’s the recipe.

One part long weekend in an exotic location with people that drink more then you.

One part significant other who is stressed for reasons that have absolutely nothing to do with you.

One part feeling ignored and uninterested in and feeling that the stress your significant other is feeling is ALL about you.

One part little things that have been nagging at you for awhile. Nothing really big, but that’s the stuff that gets you.

One part drinking too much in general.

Do you know what this recipe adds up too? Disaster.

What a fool one can make of themselves when the proceeding is true, and oh how I know it.

Why is it the person/people you love the most are the ones that get the brunt of your anger/insanity? This part of relationships I don’t understand.

Anyway, if the significant other reads this, this punter is really sorry.

London for 72 hours.

London was great, what can I say. I get there and the sun comes out
and pretty much stays out the whole time except at night when we
had a sprinkle or two.

I still find it amazing that I can go from our house in DC to our flat at
Old Compton Street in twelve hours door to door. I also find it
amazing that being in London no longer feels like I’m in a different
/foreign land. I get off the plane, go through immigration with my roll
aboard, go to the tube and an hour later I’m at Lester Square and five
minutes I’m at the flat. Not a big deal anymore.

All for about 72hours in London on my part, I left for an overnight
flight on Thursday night and leave on Monday on a daytime flight.

Everyone at work thinks I’m insane, and I think I might have to
agree to that assessment.

I get there around 12ish on Friday and we already have one friend
visiting. I take a quick shower and off to the box for lunch we go. We
sit there for a bit and watch the people come by when another friend
of ours comes by to say hello. We sit there until after five drinking
beer and coffee at which point we need to go to the flat to change so
we can go back and meet more friends at around 6:30.

We go to this other bar across the street from the box at seven dials
to meet yet another friend before going back to the box to get our
friend who we are taking to dinner. These guys are getting married
and we can’t make it so we decided to take them to a nice meal this
trip. This ended up being good because we went back to the flat and
stayed up until 4am talking and talking. We feel like we know them so
much better now.

The next day we really had no plans but to get up and eat. By the
end of the evening we had a drinks party with 13 people showing up
at our flat. We got whittled down to around four of and then went to
a newish club where one of the earlier people at the drinks party had
a friend that was DJing there. We went, we were not impressed. It
was kind of late, around two and the place really wasn’t that full. It
wastiny and the flyers they gave out to get people there in the
afternoonwere not being honored so we had to pay 5 pounds each.
We stayed for a bit and then Dave and I went home.

Now for Sunday, the whole reason we went (or I went for the
weekend) was to go see the Dame Edna Experience at the Royal
Voxhaw Tavern on a bank holiday weekend. We get there at two
in the afternoon only to have to wait an hour and ten minutes just
to get our wrist bands so we can get in later when the show starts.
We’re glad we got there when we did because we had other friends
who showed up at four and were turned away. Crazy, right?

We went and got something to eat at that point and then walked
back to have a pint or two until the show started. We ran into a
friend we hadn’t seen since Rio two years ago. He was looking really
good and we had a good long chat. Then later we meet up with more
friends that we knew from our last trip to Cape Town. Makes for a
very small gay world when that happens. We had a great time there
until about 9 that evening. At which point I told Dave I want to go
back and then go to Balan’s for something to eat. That was fun and
we got to watch the world go by from our perch in the window. We
stayed up a little bit late and then went to bed.

The next day I didn’t feel so good. I think I might be getting a little
bit of a sore throat. But we got up and packed and then went to Balan’s
for lunch. We had four bottles of Champaign left from the drinks party
and didn’t wantto leave it for the owner of the flat we rented so we
were not quite sure what to do with it. But as luck turns out on the
way back from lunch we spotted one of our friends from the first night
having coffee at costa coffee and asked him if he wanted it, and the
good thing was he did. So when weleft the flat we made a little care
package and dropped it off for him then got on the tube to go back to
Heathrow.

Twelve hours later we’re back in the good ole US of A.

Twelve hours after that I’m back at work. A little tired but none the
worse for wear.

We had fun, that’s what counts.

Wine tasting at our house, what fun!

Ok, so I’ve worked out today and ran three miles in the morning so if this doesn’t make that much sense it’s because I’m tired. This being healthy can really get to you.

We had a lovely party on Saturday night. We invited ten people to come over to our house for nibbles and a wine tasting. We decided since we had brought back some great wines from South Africa that we would have said wine tasting and invite some of our more mature, wine loving friends over to taste a couple of our bottles. Because we’re not too far gone in the smarts department we requested that our friends bring over a nice bottle of wine with a catch, there had to be a story to go with it.

We ended up with 14 bottle of wine for twelve people. The stories ranged from “I used to drink this with a girl friend who was a writer. She put me in her novel she was writing while we dated but unfortunately we ended up breaking up so in the book I die.” (Decent white wine with that story) to our friend SIP who is very interesting individual herself. She grew up in Iran but has lived here for a good long time. She owns a wine store and carries all kind of fabulous wines. She has one wine called SIP. Turns out that when she was a little girl she had smuggled some grape buds from Iran to California (It might have been France) and it might have been the other way around. It was getting fuzzy by that point. Anyway SIP now has ninety acres of grapes planted somewhere that she had smuggled in from somewhere else and now has a wine named after her. Cool huh? One of our other friends brought over some desert wines that actually where created from grapes from their vineyard. Now that is neat.

Names have been changed above to protect the innocent, errr, well, maybe not innocent but definitely so they can’t be identified from this blog.

We had a hard time at the beginning of the tasting squeezing out twelve tasting glasses of wine for everyone but we did it. By the time we got to the 10th bottle we had wine left over in the bottles. Seems that everyone just wanted smaller and smaller tastes as the night went on. After the tasting we ended up going to the roof deck drinking more wine and sat there until about 1:30 in the morning. I was a little bit worried about two of our friends who stayed till the last. They drove home and we really don’t think they should have, we had them call us when they got home so we could sleep that night knowing they were ok.

We got up the next day and didn’t feel all that horrible. I believe that a wine hangover is so much less damaging then a vodka one. In fact we felt good enough to go work out for two hours in the afternoon. At the end of the workout we just looked at each other amazed that we had done it. After that we meet up with some friends to see their house “project”. (More of a nightmare really) They purchased this house three years ago and slowly found out that the whole thing needed to be torn out and built out from the ground up.

Could you imagine?

They had to take out all of the innards. All the way down to the ground. The brick is so old that they can’t put in support beams so they had to go under and create footings in the basement in which to attach the main floor. Pretty much everything is brand new in the interior and only the shell is original but it will need some work too before they’re done. Supposedly it will be finished sometime in mid-summer but it was hard to see with only the skeleton of the rooms up at this point. I wish them luck.

We then went to another friend’s house for wine and then went to Duplex dinner for dinner. And shock of all shocks, home and to bed before 10. This is why I was able to get up and run this morning and why I’m tired right now too.

The next big event is taking Dave to the airport on Thursday for our London trip. I’ll be joining him the next week.

Merry ole England here we come!

If you find my motivation, could you email it to me?

Boy oh boy oh boy has it been hard to get motivated this week. I’m really not sure what it is but all I want to do is sleep and stare outside. Could it be that I’ve got spring fever? Haven’t had that since I was in high school I don’t think.

I’m supposed to run this week but I just can’t get my ass out of bed. So, I’ve been doing 30 minutes on the elliptical at the gym at work instead. I have gotten much done considering that I don’t have any motivation. I’ve moved servers over to our new virtual server scheme over the weekend. That worked but stressed me to no end. I worked the last two weekends doing this. Maybe working so much has to do with the motivation problem I’m having.

Tonight we have two friends coming over for dinner. That will be fun and may get me out of my funk. Thursday we have something going on that for the life of me I can’t remember but I think it’ll be fun. Friday we’re talking about staying in because on Saturday we’re having a little get together wine tasting at the house for around 11 people.

The next thing you know Dave is going to England and it’ll be the end of the month. Boy things go fast when you get older.

Did I tell you I’m having a motivation problem? We it just kicked in and it’s hard for me to write any more.

Dentist, and why you should fear them!

So back to the story of the co-worker and the dentist. This kid I work with had just one bad tooth that had been extracted awhile back, it was causing the teeth on each side and the one above to start shifting. The only way to stop this from happening was to put a metal post in the spot of the missing tooth and put a fake tooth there. Simple enough right? Well the procedure all ended in the emergency room with a large amount of blood lost.

Ughhh.

Seems that the dentist drilled a little too far into the bone in his lower jaw, so far in fact when he went through it and into the soft tissue, ie the vein. Blood come spurting out. My co-worker is out on the drugs but gets up in the chair and spits the blood out of the back of his mouth onto the dentist. Now this dentist is the one other dentist go to when they have a “bleeder” but he can’t stop the bleeding and has to call 911. Co-worker goes to emergency room where they finally get the bleeding under control. They keep him for the day, I get a call from his girl friend telling me what’s going on.

The amazing thing is he’s worried because he will be missing working for a day or two. I’m happy that he’s just alive. Crazy work ethic, right?

So after all of this, because it’s considered cosmetic he has to pay out of pocket, he gets all of the 3k he spent on it refunded and it’s being done for free. Which it should be because he could sue for malpractice really. Now they’re waiting for it to heal and the bone to grow back before they try again in about 6 months.

Fun, right?

Well it’s Monday morning after a good weekend.

We have the Mum and Dad in from England so we’ve been spending time with them. On Friday we went out to Virginia to pick them up for a dinner at our friends house that evening. We had a lovely time but I had to work that evening, which really sucked. On Saturday I had to work in the morning and then we worked out. We wanted to get all this done before we went to our niece’s second birthday party. It was fun and she’s great but I had something that I had done at work the night before not work and ended up having to go out to Ashburn to restart a server.

I was not happy about that.

We got back to the house around 9ish and then went out to JR’s until about 2am, which we needed after all the family time. While we were there we mentioned that we might have brunch the next day. Well we did, it was fun but I was in bed by 8. Not sure Dave enjoyed himself though, seems he just wasn’t in the mood.

At work now and not feeling too bad, lots of water and coffee. Not working out today though, I will run in the morning tomorrow and do chest and back at lunch. Get back into the swing of things.

Cherry blossom time.

It’s that time of the year in DC where everyone wants to come and look at a bunch of trees flowering. It only lasts for about a week so we feel fortunate that Dave’s mother will be here for them this year all the way from the UK. She gets here tomorrow afternoon and Sunday morning early they will be going to go see the cherry blossoms at the tidal basin. I say they because I plan on sleeping a bit late because we have a birthday party to go to the night before and we all know how that usually turns out. I will get up in time to make brunch for about 10 people.

It was an interesting week. I ran four times, wanted to run today but just didn’t have the time as you’ll understand in a bit. Wednesday I had to go out to Ashburn Va. (aka…ASS–BURN) for work. We finally got the load balancer up and running from a big project I have been working on. That night we go to dinner with a friend of ours who is visiting from San Francisco. We have a good meal at Makatto and then decide that going to Halo is in order. Well, it being a school night, going to Halo is never a good idea on a week night. They have two for one drinks all night and they are HALO sized drinks. We go in and run into our downstairs neighbor and his friend. Well it got messy after that, I do remember having my hands down a couple of people’s trousers. My oh my. We got home around 12ish. I’m usually in bed by around 10. The most amazing thing about all this is that I actually got up and ran the next day. Mind you, it was only a three mile run and not the usual five mile one but I still did it.

So what do we do the next night? Well it wasn’t halo but it was another local gay hangout that just happens to be very “On” on Thursday nights. Duplex Dinner, decent food but nothing to write home about and great drinks which is something to write home about. And hot, hot guys everywhere you turn. We meet our friends Rob and Carlos there for dinner at seven. We end of leaving at eleven and I insisted on taking a cab home because I wasn’t walking home in that condition.

I got up this morning and just couldn’t run, I was too tired. I did show up at work a little bit late this morning. I wonder why? I did do a full body workout so I’m all pumped now.

Dave and I decided that tonight we will go to Whole Foods for sushi and then go the theater to see the History Boys and maybe have a glass of wine there. We want to get up and work out tomorrow morning and then we pick up Dave’s mom at the airport in the afternoon  and then Rick’s birthday party that night. So far a very full weekend and all I really want to do is sleep. LOL.

Monday morning blues.

Well I did it. I really did. I made Dave leave JR’s early on a Sunday night. We actually came home and had a good night’s sleep on a Sunday night. (SHOCK and DISMAY!)

I got up and ran this morning, no really, I did. I’ve been at work all morning feeling pretty good, except for the allergies which are still raging.

So we were actually pretty good this weekend. We had a party at Dan’s house on Saturday evening. We played a rather lame board game that was supposed to be risqué. Maybe for straight people in the mid west, or maybe their six year old children. Not so much for a bunch of gay boys who can’t say anything without it becoming a sexual innuendo. The booze and friends were good though. After about three times playing the game we decided to go to the Green Lantern and check it out. We shouldn’t have. All I can say is that It’s a very mature crowd that finds it perfectly ok to walk around in just a jock strap. We drank fast and then left. It was off to bed for us because we had the in-laws coming over for Easter brunch on Sunday.

Easter was fun, and a bit surprising. The first surprise was that the in-laws were there on time. I hadn’t even started cooking because they are always about thirty minutes behind so it caught me off guard when they got to the house two minutes early. There was church to go to before that so I think that might have been the defining factor for the being there on time. The second surprise was how pretty but cold it was outside. We almost decided to have a fire but decided against it at the last minute. One more thing to look after when you have a two year old running about. The third surprise was when they left early. We expected them to be with us until around sevenish but they left around three. We didn’t know what to do with the rest of the afternoon. That’s one of the reasons we ended up at JR’s.

We did another thing that we don’t normally do. We sat in our chairs and listened to music after brunch. Normally we have lots of other things going on and we never just sit. This was nice but I got to see Micky mouse make a run for under the dining room table again. The music was loud, Dave and I were talking and the mouse still came out to take a look around. We thought we had seen the last of him because none of the traps or the poisons had been tampered with. Seems that the smell of freshly cooked bacon just got to be too much for him and he had to come take a look. He stayed under the table as I was looking in disbelief and telling Dave about him, he ran away when Dave tried to get a better look at him. Time to buy more traps.

Friday we went to Duplex Dinner for dinner and ended up at Jr’s again. I again had to be the one of reason (I think) and get Dave to come home. There was a very good reason he wanted to stay and we’ll just leave it at that. I did sleep late on Saturday mainly because of the allergies. I could sleep for most of the day because of this crap.

I have a story about a co-worker and a dentist that I will tell sometime this week but it just doesn’t quite fit in with the blog above but I'll still leave you with this little something.

Washington in the spring time.

I love Washington, it’s become very comfortable for me and my partner. This is amazing in that we considered moving to Washington about a two year obligation with plans to move on to the west coast afterwards. That would have been eight years ago if we had followed through.

Everything we need is within walking distance. I walk to work, Dave does too. We have an airport that will take us anywhere in the world that is only about Thirty five minutes away. There are so many restaurants here, we could try one every night and still not go through them all in a year. And these are only the ones we can walk to.

We love it, but….

why is it all of the sudden I’ve started to get really, really horrible allergies in the last two years? I’ve never had allergies in my life, either that or I was just too stupid to notice I had them. Then “whammo” last year it started. I hoped it would be a one year kind of thing, but noooo.

So I thought I had bronchitis, and then realized it wasn’t as bad as bronchitis but just an all over tired, achy, coughing up chunks malaise kind of thing. In other words, what most of my other friends have been complaining about since I moved here, I now have it.

I’ve spent the better part of the last three days in bed. I have gone to work only to leave early because of how bad I felt. I did workout today because I was feeling guilty after not doing it for so long, but that was a really bad mistake. I feel worse now. I think the only thing to do will be to get some allergy medicine but I hate them, they make my skin crawl and make it hard to pee. Also certain aspects of my manhood decide to shrivel up and hide.

Let summer begin please.

Life at 41 now. ugh

!So, Lufthansa give me a 25 Euro voucher because I had written about the jerk on the plane on my trip back to the US on flyertalk.com. They didn’t need to but they did.

It’s a little lame though because it’s only for merchandise you purchase while on a Lufthansa flight. If it went toward a ticket I think I would have appreciated it more.

So we get back from our long trip to Cape Town at around 7ish pm on Wednesday, I’m at work on Thursday at 8ish am. It was a little bit rude I have to say. After being away for so long with nothing to worry about but what you’re going to eat with your fabulous wine after working out for two hours, coming back to reality wasn’t so nice. But reality didn’t last too long, noooooo. We keep the vacation going.

Why did we do this you ask? Well we had some friends from the UK come in on Thursday night to visit for the weekend, actually from Birmingham to be exact. So Dave picks them up from the airport and brings them home. We’re pretty sure they will be jet lagged and will feel like going to bed. We gave them options for dinner and they choose Duplex Dinner. We kind of pushed them in that direction because Duplex is the place to go on a Thursday night. It’s also the home of some of the strongest drinks in DC.

I was there until 12:30 that night. I made it into work the next day on time but I’m not sure how. The boys didn’t know what to do with all that alcohol in our drinks so they just drank more. One thing to know is that alcohol in the US is relatively cheep. In the UK you get a double, 50ml, which barely wets the ice in the glass and it cost about $12. Here you get about 4oz for $10 which is about 6 times more than the UK for a lot less money. And if you go to JR’s on Sundays it’s $2 double (American strength) vodkas. If you do this it usually ends up in tragedy and tears but I’ll get to that later.

So I go to work the next day and Dave takes the boys out to see the monuments. They didn’t get up until after ten. I had been at work for two hours at this point. Well we set up dinner with them at our favorite French restaurant around the corner. Somewhere along dinner I realized it would be a very bad thing for me to go out. We have a dinner party in their honor on Saturday with twelve people coming. I end up sending them on their way and I go home to bed.

Sometimes I do the smart thing.

I was up and at the grocery store at 9am on Saturday morning looking for all the fresh ingredients I needed. We had scallops with a savory vanilla sauce and parmesan crisps for the starter. We had halibut with a crab meat stuffing with asparagus and multi colored small potatoes for the main and we had a poached pear stuffed with pistachios and dates with small profiteroles and a scoop of butter pecan ice cream for dessert. It all went over very well.

Cooking and plating for twelve can be a bit overwhelming especially in my small kitchen but luckily Tony was there to help too.

So we finish up dinner and then find there is another party to go to. I volunteered to take the boys because Dave had done it the night before. We end up staying at the party until 3am. Boy oh boy. We ended up taking a cab home, firstly because it was raining, secondly because it was too far to walk from that neighborhood and thirdly because we were too drunk to walk that far.

Got Home and passed out.

Only to get up on Sunday and make it to the 3rd annual Saint Tragic’s Day brunch at the beacon bar and grill. $30 for all you can eat and all you can drink. There were 20 of us there and I think we must have gone through at least 4 cases of cheap Champaign. It all started at 12:30pm and didn’t end until 4ish. The boys from Birmingham said at brunch all they’ve been doing sense they got to DC was drink. And it was mostly true. At this point they boys need to get back to the house and pack for their plane to Los Vegas. I decided to stay with my friends and go to JR’s. Really bad Idea.

It always seems like a good idea at the time but if very rarely is a good idea. What I remember of it was great fun. I did get home around 9ish. Dave took a friend to dinner.

I did make it to work on Monday. Got home and went to bed early. Made it to work today too, but……

I now think I have bronchitis. My bald spot hurts, when that happens I know I’m sick. That and the fact that I’ve been coughing up nastiness for two days.

Too much excess for too long. This all started the Thursday before we left for Frankfurt when I went to see the Spice Girls. It’s time to calm down for a little bit.

I might right about the trip to Cape Town too but I’m not sure I want to bore you with all the food and wine stories. Until next time.

What a Jerk!

I was coming home from FRA to IAD in FC on LH 418 yesterday. There are five of us on the upper deck, quite nice. We have a youngish male FA who seems a little bit wet behind the ears but noting horrible. One of the things he didn’t do that I’ve had other FAs do in FC was come around again with the Champaign again before taxiing, I did ask and got some more but didn’t really think I should have to ask. I’m ok with this at this point because I see he’s trying and it might be one of his first times doing this. I figure they know it’s a light load in FC so they can let him train with the five people there. To me not a really big deal.

But to the guy behind me, OMG!!!

We start Taxiing and all of the sudden I hear a very loud (yelling) conversation between the passenger and the FA (really at the FA from the passenger). Seems the young FA had tried to do his job and take the passenger’s (we’ll call him BUJ (big, ugly and jerk) from now on) nuts and glass. You would think it was the end of the world for BUJ!

He yelled something about how the FA should be working coach instead of first class and that he wasn’t fit to be serving in first class. All very loudly so that everyone could hear it.

I was in shock, I’ve never heard anyone talk to anyone else like that. Especially in the pitch and tone that was used. There was venom and hate in everything BUJ said.

One of the reasons I like FC on LH is because it’s easy and relaxing and I don’t have to deal with stress. This altercation caused me stress. I was happy when it ended and it looked like BUJ had gone to sleep.

Dinner service commenced and it was all fine. I did have to ask for more wine again but once he figure it out I didn’t have to for the rest of the flight. (Another perk of FC is a never end wine glass if you want it). I then watched a movie.

And then BUJ did it again!

I was watching the movie when I thought that’s a strange sound track coming through, sounds like someone yelling. I then take my NOISE Canceling head set off to listen to BUJ completely bitch out the head purser for, I would say, about 10 minutes. I was close to getting up and telling BUJ to shut the **** up, you’re ruining my flight.

He then passed out for the rest of the flight, thank god.

There was absolutely no reason for this behavior. My travel companion said to me after the first bit of yelling that he knew everything he needed to know about BUJ from the outburst and that he wasn’t a very nice man.

There was a bit of justice at immigration at IAD. Our flight was late and we all showed up between shifts so there was only one person working US citizens. I was close to the front so I got through relatively quickly and got my luggage right away. BUJ was quite a way back in the line and looked like he was about to have a stroke he was so unpleased.

Where do these people come from?

Failing apart at 40.

Ok, so it’s been a very long time since I’ve added to this space. There are reasons other than just being lazy. I figured I would bypass one of them and do it anyway. You see I’ve injured my left hand. This is how it happened.

Dave and I were working out about three weekends ago. Nice strenuous workout. Towards the end of it I had my left hand resting on some equipment higher than the rest of my body, that’s when it happened. For some reason the tendon in my birdie(middle) finger decided that it didn’t like the position that it was in and that it wanted to be closer to its neighboring knuckle.

I made a noise somewhat like a whimpering school girl and just looked at my hand thinking “this really, really doesn’t feel good, how am I going to make it stop not feeling good and how do I do it quickly?” So I took my right hand and pointing finger and moved the tendon back.

Problem solved, pain gone all is good in the world again….Right?

Wrong, it went out another six of seven times that day. It got to the point where I just didn’t want to do anything with it. So the next day with it still going out I go get some medical tape and tape my middle finger and my pointing finger together. This immobilized my finger. It’s also made it quite hard to do things like, oh say, TYPING!!

Hence not updating this blog. This takes forever for me now and lots of typos that hopefully I will correct before I post it.

So I end up going to my doctor for a regular check up. I had taken myself off my meds (high blood pressure and cholesterol) because I’ve been running and losing weight and mostly behaving myself. The doctor wanted to make me the poster child for the office. My blood pressure was that of an athlete and my cholesterol was a little high but not that bad. He tells me to keep it up and by the way why are your fingers taped up? I tell him and it’s an orthopedist visit for me next. Ughhhh.

Off to the Orthopedist I go a week later. Got in kind of quick so I was happy. I saw the doctor, told him the story and he looks me in the eye and says “we’re going to have to treat this aggressively”.

Aggressively, WTF?

He saw that look in my eye that said, I don’t think so and then backed down a little bit. He said that I had done exactly what I should have done with taping my fingers and that we should leave it like that for 6 weeks. If/ When that doesn’t work we can put me in a cast for another 6 weeks. If/When that doesn’t work we will need to have surgery and put you back in the cast.

He wants to put me in a cast sooner than that but I’m going to Cape Town this Friday and I’m not about to go there in a cast for 16 days. So when I get back I have and appointment to see the doctor again. I do also have a good supply of medical tape and feel a little bit like Michael Jackson with his taped fingers.

I’ll try to keep this updated but like I said earlier, typing really sucks now.

Cape Town here we come!!!!!!!!!

ok, so now an update.

I'm at 205lbs from close to 215lbs and down to 19% fat from 24% fat.

I think I'm doing well.

But....

I've hurt my hand. the ligament in my left hand middle finger now moves in ways it shouldn't. And it hurts when it happens! Typing is really hard now too.

So I have to tape my fingers together and hope it doesn't happen again. Which it did last night!

Doctor said that it will need surgery but we can try making it not move for 6 weeks and see if that fixes it.

6 Weeks!!!

That's hard to do.

ugh!!

That realy screws up my workout schedule.

So now I'm just trying to make it through the day without it popping out of place.

Still trying to figure out Award availability.

Ok, so Dave and I are going to Cape Town at the end of February. Originally we were going to try and go to Sydney for the Gay Mardi Gras at that time. I looked for award seats on any Star Alliance carrier going west to Sydney. Couldn’t find any availability. So I changed tactics and decided to go through Europe instead. We would get an extra cheep ticket to London and then to through Singapore to Sydney.

This kind of worked, anyone who has tried to get start alliance award tickets on Singapore air in the premium cabins knows that it’s next to impossible. Never the less I got two Business class tickets from London to Singapore and then two coach from Singapore to Sydney. Business all the way back to London.

Mind you this was going to be a three day trip just to get there. All of our friends where going to try and be there because it’s the 30th anniversary of Mardi Gras. Unfortunately Dave and I just never felt the love for it and just couldn’t get excited over it. So, one day when I had a little extra free time I did a search for award tickets to Cape Town for the same time we were thinking of going to Sydney.

I was shocked to see First Class availability for two from IAD(Washington, DC) to FRA(Frankfurt, Germany) and then only Coach from FRA to JNB(Johannesburg, SA) and then Business class (that’s all the rest of the world does internally, no first class like in the states) from JNB to CPT(Cape Town) On the way back I got all first class home except for the CPT to JNB which was business. The big flights are on Lufthansa and the enter SA flights are on SAA.

Ok, this we could work with. We also love Cape Town. So I change the award tickets to South Africa and then did some research. Seems that Lufthansa opens up its premium cabin for award travel seven days out. So if you check now for the 16th you will see anywhere from two to four seats available for awards in first. Having figured this out I wasn’t too worried about the coach leg of our flight. I was pretty sure that a week before travel I could get us into first class for that leg. I also found out that Untied will not let you change the ticket if it’s less than three days before travel begins. So there is only about three to four day to make the change.

But I, being the persistent person I am, have been checking everyday to see if first class opened up for that leg. And today it DID!!!!!

For one person…. :-(

So I called and got Dave’s Itinerary changed so that he was in First Class, alas I’m still in coach. But I haven’t given up hope for me yet. I’ll keep checking every day until I get it.

Our ultimate plan is to push the trip back two days and leave on Friday night instead of Sunday night that week. So I’m also checking the flights from FRA to JNB( this is the bad one to get the award tickets on) on the Saturday before. If it opens up for first, I will pay a change fee and get us to Cape Town two days earlier. I’ve already talked to the lady we’re renting from and she says it looks fine for us to come early.

Keep your fingers crossed.

So, going back to the title of this blog entry, I have yet to figure out how and why they open up seats. Today is no more special then yesterday which had to seats. It’s 6 weeks and 3 days out from our trip. Why did one seat open up today? It’s so strange.

Oh, and the diet is still going well, I’ve come to the conclusion that I will only weigh myself on Saturdays. That way I can see the trend. Everyday fluctuates too much.

Emotional Me!

Ok, so I’ve been a little confuse on the whole Democratic nominee thing lately.

I started out thinking Hillary was the way to go. And then I thought she was too much part of the system.

So I started thinking Obama was the one. Because he wasn’t part of the system.

Edwards, who’s that?

But I had a little bit of an epiphany after Iowa. I actually felt disappointed and sad that Hillary didn’t win it. And resentful that Obama did.

That really surprised me.

When Hillary did win New Hampshire, I had a huge sense of relief and almost welled up with tears. That really surprised me too. I had no idea that I was that emotionally invested in this. This has turned into a gut feeling kind of thing.

So now I’ve come to the conclusion that Hillary is the one we need. She has been battling these f*cking Republican morons since at least 1992 in Washington and she knows how to get things done even with the road blocks and petty wars that the Republicans resort to. I feel that Obama will get chewed up and spit out and will not be effective, he’ll just spin his wheels. He will try too hard and will get nowhere.

It’s sad but true.

Unfortunately the way the US is right now, the only way to change it is to “pander” a bit to the right wing constitutes. But one can still change things this way, it just takes longer. Hopefully Hillary and Bill will be able to do this.

Now for other non political comments.

I’m tired, this not eating and exercising things is hard. But I am making some progress. I just have to keep this up for another, oh, six or seven weeks. By that time I should look rather gaunt and pale. But I’ll be skinny. And we all know, you can never be too rich or too thin.

210lbs today. Like I said, making progress.

211lbs, WTF

Well I guess it just goes to show that things can change very fast when you have a body mass like mine. Today I weighed myself in the morning and after working out, 212lbs and 211lbs respectively.

So, I guess I’m going in the right direction and that the day of rest on Sunday had everything settle for a bit. I just had to get it moving again.

I walked home the long way last night. By the time I got home my legs where wobbly. I didn’t help that I have a huge head cold going on right now. When I got home I cleaned a little bit and then put some of our left over gumbo in the microwave just in time to see that I had gotten a call from a friend who wanted to go out to dinner. I had to call had give him a rain check. I didn’t want to be around people while I felt that contagious.

It’s much better today.

I ended up taking some cold medicine and watching some movies. I was in bed by 9:30 and up at 5:30 this morning feeling much better but still having the sniffles. Here is the morning routine:

• · Get up and go down stairs to the kitchen to make coffee. It's Tuesday so it’s trash and recycle day. Empty the trash cans and recycling bin and place in the appropriate place for pick up while I wait for the coffee to brew. Pick up news paper while doing this.

• · Drink coffee and check emails. Wait for coffee to “work”

• · Coffee starts to “work”, go to bathroom, read news paper and get cleaned up.

• · Get dressed, pack workout clothes for gym at work in backpack.

• · Make oatmeal, do stomach exercises while waiting for it to finish cooking.

• · Eat oatmeal and head out the door. Leaving by 7am.

From here I take the long 5 mile walk to work. I’ll take the same walk back tonight.

So, here’s hoping all the work begets some results.

Later.

Well, up to 213……

But I need a new hole in my belt!

What’s up with that?

I guess fat turns into muscle which weighs more but, shouldn’t 1lb of fat turn into 1lb of muscle? If not, is the mass coming from another dimension somewhere?

Ugh….

Anyway, I walked the long way to work today, about 5 miles. I plan on walking the long way back, about 5 miles. I plan on keeping this up until I can see the muscles in my stomach or i drop dead. I might keep doing it if I like the results. What's two hours of my life a day?

I also only want one chin, not two or three.

I did chest and back today for weights. I starting to look like Chriszilla. I’m use to being big, but not this big. I’m hoping that once most of the fat is gone I’ll start leaning up and showing more definition.

Onwards and upwards….. To space and beyond!

January and the unobtainable goal!

Being the crazy wacky kind of guy I am, I’ve set up a goal to lose 20lbs before we go to Cape town at the end of February.

The way I’m going to do this you might ask?

Well it starts with cutting out alcohol for at least a month. Yes, you heard me. No booze for at least a month. Do you know how many empty calories there are in booze? LOTS!

And a strict exercise regime, 1 and ½ hours a day for six days a week. Monday through Saturday or until I drop dead. Also, 40 minutes of walking to work and back every Monday through Friday.

Eating about 1600 to 2000 calories a day, I should have about 3100 to keep my weight where it is now. So far so good.

Did I mention that I’m not smoking either. This one wasn’t so big because I only did it when I drank, and that was on the weekends.

So we got a head start and worked out four times before the new year. I’m glad for that. I finally weighed myself yesterday, Jan the 2nd, and I was at 213lbs. This might sound like a lot to you guys but I was thinking I had gotten up to 220lbs. Sooooooo, I’m already ahead, right?

So here are the stats so far for yesterday.

Calories eaten = 1855
Calories burned = 3634 (exercise, walking to work, working, just living and sleeping)
Net loss -1779
Weight 213lbs


Today I have these stats.

Calories eaten = 1699 (estimating the snack and dinner that I have planned for this evening)
Calories burned = 3798 (exercise, walking to work, working, just living and sleeping)
Net Loss -2099

Weight 212lbs

So, why am I doing all this now? Well, because we have just gone through 10 days of excess, too much eating, too much drinking and not enough exercise. At the end of the holiday season, when you look in the mirror naked, you realize you just need to stop and detox for a bit. Not to mention losing some weight.

I would love to go into the details of the holiday season but I don’t have enough time or space to do that. Suffice to say we all had a great time, especially my mother. And besides, I’m moving ahead right now and would rather focus my attention that way.

I will keep this blog updated with my progress/digress hopefully every day. I hope I will make my goal and look good in a speedo in March. Wish me luck.