31 January 2008

Profoundly Asleep

Jenna, this morning, left the apartment at 6:15 because she had to work an unusually early time slot. I say that to explain why, an hour later, I awoke to the feeling of some seemingly foreign object sliding across my chest, headed off the bed to the floor.

Apparently, in an effort to shield my sleep-riddled eyes from the light streaming from the kitchen, I had covered my face with my arms. (Do not, gentle reader, assume that my lovely wife is uncaring and cold enough to turn on all the lights in our humble apartment in attempt to thwart my extra moments of sleep that she, unfortunatly, cannot enjoy alongside me. On the contrary! she does her very best to use as little light as possible in order to facilitate my extra moments of slumber.) In the ensuing hour I lost any sensation of feeling in my right arm. Not only did I lose feeling, I could not--no matter how hard I tried--move my arm. It was completely asleep, profoundly asleep.

That has never happened before and caused quite a shock in my groggy, half-asleep mind. I, momentarily, worried that my right arm would be left useless. Luckily I'm left-handed, so I retained some hope for my promising (if only) career as a literary scholar. Of course, every one knows, one cannot possibly hope to at all function without an operative dominant hand; ask Edward Rochester.

It was an interesting start to the day, if nothing else.

29 January 2008

Fitness Revolution Update #3

So I stepped on the scale this morning and was shocked by the number between my toes: 236.5. That's two pounds more than last week! It is a bit frustrating, but upon further reflection I realized that I hadn't done anything in the last week to further my fitness goals, so I deserved this decidedly upsetting step backwards.

Luckily, Jenna and I finally got our membership to the local YMCA finalized. This morning (from 6-7) I participated in a spinning class and it was a whopper. Pretty much, I (along with 15 other people) sat on a pretty nice stationary bicycle and was goaded to go faster and harder by a guy named Fred yelling over mediocre-but-occasionally-amazing music. They played "Who Are You?" by The Who followed immediately by "Bawitdaba" by Kid Rock. It's not the ideal juxtaposition, but I dealt with it. I plan to do that class at least twice a week and lift at least twice. Hooray for the YMCA. It's fun to stay there.

ps- Go Obama Go!

24 January 2008

A Few of My Favorite Things

This video may be my new favorite thing.
"Hooch is crazy!"

so is Tom Cruise.

22 January 2008

Gerund+Noun=Movie Title

Inspired by the Language Log's multi-piece article on non-constituent titles, I have recently become interested in movies whose titles are made up of a gerund and a noun (or noun phrase, whichever you prefer). I'm certainly no linguist and my knowledge and, frankly, interest in grammar is minimal, at best so this certainly isn't a legit pursuit of linguist knowledge or renown, just an observation.

So far, I've thought of:

Chasing Amy
Finding Forrester
Searching for Bobby Fischer (maybe doesn't count, but who cares?)

Chelsea's:

Waking Ned Divine
Driving Miss Daisy

And really, when I was talking about this I had many more but when it comes to writing it down, I am drawing a blank.

Anyway, if you can think of any more, just throw them my way.

Fitness Revolution Update #2

The weigh in today: 234.5 lbs. I know, I know it's only a loss of .5 pounds, but it is a loss of 5 pounds over two weeks. In my defense, I'm going to blame the nearly stagnant numbers on a nearly exerciseless week and the fact that as of yesterday, Jenna and I have been married for 6 months so we made a mighty filling dinner (of which I ate too much) complete with homemade (that means out of a box) cake and lots-o-icing. Our membership to the YMCA should kick in tomorrow, and that means that I can start early morning spinning classes before work and actually add the exercise portion to my fitness regiment. Thanks for all your support and thoughts. Know you're loved!

18 January 2008

Searching for Bobby Fischer

Yesterday, walking through the streets of West Chester I was passed by a borough-owned vehicle towing a tree-chopper. The primary purpose of the tree choppers were, I imagine, to chop up and cart away the carcasses of the past-their-prime (it appears that this will be a hyphen-filled post) Christmas trees lining the streets. The scent emanating from the back of the truck brought back countless Christmas-time memories or my childhood. I love Christmas-time and it kept me in a good mood all day... at least until my 30-minute drive took over two hours because of the snow/traffic.

In other news, the search for Bobby Fischer is over. NPR reported that he passed away in Iceland, his new home. I've always been a fan of the movie about the child chess-talent.

Anyway, the part about the smell of Christmas trees bringing back memories is a lie: my mom is severely allergic to real trees so we always had a fake tree. Enjoy the day.

15 January 2008

Fitness Revolution Update #1

So a week has come and gone since I laid forth my fitness goals for the next few months. I weighed myself and came in at 239.5 lbs. This morning when I woke, I was luckily awake enough to remember to weigh myself before I ate, or anything else so I'm fairly confident it's an accurate representation of my weight loss. The number: 235 lbs. I total loss of 4.5 pounds. Though the first pounds are, so I hear, always the easiest to lose, I fear that I may have set the bar too low for my weight loss. The weight loss came with no real effort. I, more or less, ate what I wanted; I just tried to eat a little less of it. I think the biggest help is my lack of pop. I do miss the Dew, but I'll certainly survive and feel better for it.

I had fully intended to work out often, but an application into the YMCA (we decided it was our best option. It seems expensive, but they give discounts if your family makes little enough money, and we qualify!) but the process of application and financial matters takes about two weeks. In an effort to be semi-active, I've been meandering the streets of West Chester on my lunch break. It's a lovely town and the people are surprisingly friendly. There are several book shops where I could spend far too much money and the same is true of restaurants. You should visit.

All-in-all, it was a successful fitness week, despite my lack of effort. I look forward to the results when I buckle down and try harder. Thanks for all your good thoughts, encouraging words, and friendship. Come visit me in West Chester! or Media.

12 January 2008

Happy Birthday!

Today is Jenna's birthday. If you want to sing to her (she loves the birthday song), please do so. It would make her day even better. Thanks for being our friends, blogosphere.

Jenna, lucky for her, shares her birthday with Rush Limbaugh. I really can't think of any better company.

10 January 2008

New Look

bee tea dub--I really like my new blog colors. I was getting lost in the sea of blue and decided to go as traditional as possible, hearkening back to my boring and oft forgotten Southern roots. Black is the new brown, right?

Quick Plug: I love the Language Log. They have several interesting posts about the "x is the new y" phenomenon as well as a healthy hatred for Dan Brown. I'm publicly outing myself as a wanna-be linguist while proclaiming my disdain for The Di Vinci Code.

Sit Down, You're Rockin' the Vote

As of late, I've been talking politics with a few of my co-workers pretty frequently. Today one of them received an all-too-popular e-mail claiming that Barack Obama is a radical Muslim who wants to destroy America from the inside, hates the flag, and generally despises all that we consider Americana. I did my best to disprove all the lies contained in the e-mail, but all the while I couldn't help but be disgusted by the hate, insecurity, and bigotry on display by those the write and pass on these e-mail full of lies.

Me, I'm pretty jazzed about this upcoming presidential election. If things pan out as they should, America will be electing either a black man or a woman. Though I am currently anti-Hillary, if she gets the nod from the Democrats, she'll have my support because she'll be an amazing president; Obama will just be better. If either Obama or Clinton get elected, we'll have a president who isn't afraid to embrace change (a far too often used buzz word as of late), cares about health care, and will have a better foreign policy than our current administration.

There are some amazing political cartoons out there. Daryl Cagle keeps a nice daily index of political cartoons and I read nearly every day. Check it out, if you want to laugh and be mildly informed at the same time

Sometimes I am amazed by politicians. More often, however, I am amazed by the voters of the nation. Hillary Clinton gets teary-eyed in a New Hampshire diner and suddenly voters believe that she has a human side vote for her in New Hampshire. Though it could never be proven, I am willing to believe that Mrs. Clinton allowed herself to cry--not necessarily that she faked it--but that she allowed her emotions to show through in an effort to sway some voters, particularly those of the feminine persuasion. Listening to interviews on NPR, it appears that many voters were persuaded by the sudden onslaught of emotion by Hillary.

I guess her campaign managers realized that America (or Iowa, at the least), doesn't appreciate a stone-cold politician with gobs of experience and little personal skills. So here we stand with Obama and Clinton essentially tied and Clinton with the momentum heading into Michigan (which doesn't really count), South Carolina, etc. I anticipate (and hope) that the rest of the voters will see through the suddenly emotional facade of Hillary's campaign and vote for Mr. Obama: my candidate of choice.

Whom are you supporting and why? I'm just curious.

08 January 2008

New Year's Revolution

Following in the footsteps of many bloggers before me, I have decided to use this blog as an accountability took to aid in my new fitness plan that starts today. So we got ourselves a scale and, though it isn't the perfect fitness measuring instrument, it'll have to do because I don't want to spend the money on BMI indicating scales and fancier equipment. I plan to weigh myself frequently, but at least every Tuesday morning and report to you, the few who read this, what it says. This morning I weighed in at 239.5 lbs. That's too much for me to consider myself healthy, so I want to change that.

Now we all know that accountability does nothing if there aren't goals, right? So I'll now set forth the goals of my new fitness program.

I want to weigh in at 215 by April 15th--tax day. I guess now that I work at an FI (financial institution) that the day now holds some significance to me, at least more than before. All in all, that's a weight loss of 24.5 lbs in a little over three months. I don't think that sounds unreasonable since I have achieved my current size because I have completely ignored any form of exercise and eat whatever and whenever I want.

Now on the how portion of my goals.

I will simply dedicate myself to a more active life coupled with better eating habits. I think the biggest sacrifice, for me, is the decision to almost completely give up pop. I plan to allow myself no more than two small Mountain Dews a week, and that's only if I feel I cannot go without one. Jenna typically eats healthily, so she'll certainly help me out with this. I am currently looking into a few different gyms/fitness centers in the area and am sizing up which is best/most affordable. WCU (West Chester University) has a fitness center that will be free, but it's 30 minutes from my house (only three from work) and I'm not sure whether or not it has free weights. (My only beef with the Harding workout facility was the complete lack of free weights, I hate the machines.) There is also a nice-looking YMCA near our apartment and an L.A. Fitness nearby. Apparently a Y membership is expensive. Who knew?

Anyway, I took this idea from Mark Elrod and I can only hope that I'm nearly as successful. Thanks in advance for all your encouragement, prayers, and nagging.

Please know that I love you.