I tried to update my blog today and I broke it for a while. I’m not quite sure how I accomplished that, but I was able to fix it somehow. This is different from my experiments computer at work which I have somehow turned into a futuristic space heater instead of what it’s supposed to be for. Ah, well. It seems like everyone is cramming in a crapload of meetings into this week in preparation for hiding from work until the end of the year. I may have to follow suit.

The painters were back and they stained some of the wood to prove to me that it’s OK. It doesn’t look that bad under the temporary lighting we have set up, but I’m not sure what it would look like in daylight. It might not be such a big deal, fortunately.

I’ve been having trouble getting to sleep, mainly just staying up too late fiddling with my computers, which is what I do at work as well (the fiddling with the computers and staying awake thing). I think the lack of sleep starting to catch up with me, which is good, since I’ve had a little trouble getting to sleep in the first place.

In house news, the painters have stripped the primer off the doors but it still looks like hell. There’s no way they’re getting all the TiO₂ off of the wood and staining that mess is going to look like crap. I was upset about this earlier today, but what’s the point? Being angry takes up too much of my time as it is. Time I could be using to read Romantic Era poetry or just plain sleeping.

Sometimes I wonder if I should have continued on with graduate studies in English. One of my English professors thought I had the knack and I wrote three long papers on The Rime of the Ancient Mariner alone. I’m afraid my writing skills are atrophying at this time as I can’t seem to write up any reports at work. Perhaps the facts are getting in the way or maybe it’s my unease at having to use Powerpoint. In any case, I could have gone on to get some sort of degree in English or English Lit, but that only leads to two things I can think of: a job at Starbucks or a law degree. I think that working at Starbucks would keep me from sleeping altogether because of all the caffeine, and as I get older I can’t drink as much alcohol so the law degree probably wouldn’t be ideal either. Not that I think all lawyers drink a lot, but all the lawyers who are my friends sure do.

One of the first things I realized at work was that all of the audio was missing off of my iPhone. No music, no podcasts, not even any of my ringtones. My work environment is kind of loud (especially when the world’s loudest typer is in since he sits in the cube next to mine) and I usually have something playing in my headphones so I can drown that out. Fortunately, everything came back when I got home and fiddled with iTunes, but I now have 6GB of music and 6GB of “other” on my iPhone. It’s a good thing I bought the big one.

I found out that the ringtones were missing when Jay the Contractor called to tell me that the painters, who no one was expecting, decided to show up and slap primer on my bare wood doors and trim. Never mind that I’m paying extra for clear wood that can be stained (which is what I wanted). Now they’re having to strip off all the primer and maybe even replace some of the wood. It’s all kind of goofy if you ask me. I wasn’t mad and Jay even told me that the painters confessed to screwing up and that they’re paying to fix it all. Even less reason to not be mad. Sure it’ll take longer, but even without screwups it takes longer for contractors to finish things than you’d think.

So I’ve come up with another possible ideal age for a woman. I figure when I’m 45, I should go out with someone who is 33 1/3 (and not 78). So after some calculations, I figure that’s someone who is born around 1/3 of a year or 122 days beyond my birthday, or August 12, 1976. Coincidentally, my sister’s birthday is August 11, which kind of creeped me out even though she’s a lot older than 33. In any case, I’m never going to pull this off. Let’s see, 78 would be someone born in 1931, which is my mom’s birth year. I just can’t win.

I’ve found that my relationship with garlic is similar to most of my other relationships: I like it and it doesn’t like me. In fact, garlic does its best to let me know just how much it doesn’t like me, or at least my innards. It’s just as well, I spent $600 on lighting fixtures yesterday and I really didn’t have to do all that much more about the house renovations. They’re trying to finish up because Jason the Contractor, unlike many in his profession, seems to have a few jobs lined up. Once they’re finished with our house, they’re off onto something else.

So, while yesterday I had shopping and a birthday party to attend, today I just had to sit around and watch TV. I was all ready to go to sleep at 9PM since I’m not feeling that great and of course it’s close to midnight now. I’m such a master of planning.

I’m a guy, and sometimes it’s funny to just watch other guys do incredibly stupid things. Especially when you know it’s not too bad in the long term. I guess a few of the fitter guys in the gym were talking about how they could out-eat each other and THMFIC was egging them on. Three of them finally decided they’d have a burrito eating contest and I told Staff Sgt Evan Smith that he should enter as well. I even said I could sponsor him if he wanted so he joined and won. I think he’s probably the thinnest competitor. He was acting all cocky afterwards, but I think he ended up in great pain. He had just over three burritos.

Sean, who was number 2 and probably could have won if we hadn’t kept trying to make him laugh, didn’t look so good when he finished but he was drinking coke soon afterwards and was even talking about getting ice cream afterwards. He almost ate three complete burritos.

Orion, who is tall, lanky, and started out with a six-pack, ended up unable to turn from his waist. He looked stiff and walked downtown to try to loosen up. He was talking a lot of smack beforehand, but was reconsidering the wisdom of his actions when he sat down to two 1lb burritos.

And Matty “My people brought burritos to America” G, had three of the smallest burritos we saw tonight. 3 of them didn’t weigh as much of 2 of anyone else’s. He was the first one out.

It was one of the silliest things I’ve seen, but I remember going to the “eat all you can” buffet at Yam-Yam’s where we all ate so much that everyone else passed out and my girlfriend at that time forbade me from ever taking her there again. She felt bad for days from all the food. I, on the other hand, got a Perrier, jumped around to settle the food, and was ready to go by that evening.

While I probably don’t need a girlfriend right now because I have a brand new Rubik’s cube and can’t really remember how to solve the thing, but I realized that I haven’t had a girlfriend since I got a regular job. Perhaps that’s telling me something, but I think it’s just the man keeping me down.

I took a day off from the gym, not so much from work, and boy howdy did I have an exciting time. I was juggling hard drives trying to get a working system so I could make a bootable USB stick. Whoo-wee. Lots of moving hard drives around and their associated data, hoping that I wouldn’t copy in the wrong direction and destroy all my data. Certainly not the most exciting thing to do, but it’s what I do.

Really, in summary, I didn’t get any real work done.

The reason I took a day off from the gym, besides being all sore from working out, is that tomorrow is deadlift day and even more important, the burrito-eating throwdown between several of the more foolish competitive eaters in the gym. Whatever those guys are doing, it’s working for them in the workouts. Also, since I haven’t placed any bets on any of the competitors (unless of course Nurse Beechwood is competing) I may be called in as a judge. THMFIC has too much at stake to be impartial in this contest.

I’m spending money like a crazy man. I’m not sure if it’s to fill an empty hole in my life or if I’m just trying to jump start the economy on my own. In any case, my old boss, my buddy John, my buddy Greg, and my sister all have fancy espresso machines so I thought it was time to get one for myself.

It was on sale at Costco. I know it’s an extravagance and I owe a boatload of money to Jay the Contractor and his crew, but I’m in Portland where we’re known for our beer, coffee, and strip clubs. I suppose we’re also known for our rain and Nike and other things, but coffee is certainly in our top five and there are even three fairly large coffee roasters in my neighborhood. You can’t swing a dead cat without hitting a coffee shop by my house and they’re not all Starbucks, either. I’m really not sure why you’d be treating a dead cat in that manner, but you shouldn’t have two Starbucks on the same block either.

In any case, at the gym today I was unable to do any kettlebell clean and presses. NONE AT ALL. Actually, it was because they changed the workout to do more leg work and less of the kettlebell clean and presses, but what fun is it to admit to that? We rowed until our legs felt like they were going to fall off and then did leg circuits until we were certain they were going to fall off. Good times were had by all and I wonder if I’m going to be able to walk tomorrow. We’ll see.

I had yet another secret competition going on: doing as many pullups as the women’s record in the gym, but it was not to be. I was having a rough time with the pullups today and I can’t just blame that on the crick I’ve had in my neck since last Friday. I was only able to do 16. I tried to break the women’s record the last time we did max pull-ups and I was only able to match the record of the time which was 24. Devon got on the bar right after me and raised the record to 26. In any case, the women’s record is now 30 thanks to Courtney. I have some catching up to do.

Oh, and it sounds like nobody wrote down my personal record of 24 pull-ups, so since I have no other witnesses, I’m still “officially” at 20 kipping pull-ups and 12 dead-hang pull-ups. I’ve been stuck at 12 dead hang pull-ups for a long time and I’m afraid that even if I replace my ass with some sort of helium-filled ass, it wouldn’t make a big difference according to my previous calculations.

Oh, and the reason I don’t try to match the men’s record is because Ben has it at 43 or something similarly ridiculous.

In other news, THMFIC was in a mood tonight and was scowling a lot at the start of the workout. I was worried that he had a toothache or something, but he lightened up after he was finished with work and realized he could go home. I’m pretty sure he wasn’t scowling at anyone else, but I pay extra for that sort of treatment.

In better news, the tiling appears to be done! The grout still needs to go in, but look at how nice it looks!

It’ll look even nicer when the tile saw is out of there and the new toilet and the washlet are installed. And the cabinets. And the lighting. And the flooring. It’s still a ways from being finished but I’m pretty psyched about the progress.

So today at the gym we did more count-y exercises. Not geographical county, but exercises where you do a bunch of stuff and you have to count how many you do. You’re not supposed to be competitive about it all, but if I wasn’t a little competitive then I wouldn’t be going to the gym, I’d be at home watching FoodTV (it’s Monday after all).

Or maybe Chuck. There’s this blonde woman at the gym who I can pretend is Sarah because the TV show is only going to work if the two never actually get together so the metaphor works, somehow, at least in my twisty-turny thoughts. I’m only like Chuck in that I’m probably heading for a job fixing computers at some big electronics store, not in the spy part.

But back to the count-y thing, we did 12 minutes of:

• 5 Burpees
• 10 kettlebell snatches (5 per arm)
• 15 mountain climbers
• 20 2-handed kettlebell swing

and counted the number of rounds we got. I almost did six rounds but time was called when I was at 19 kettlebell swings. Since I’ve taken almost all the science and engineering classes a person can take as an undergraduate, I know about counting. You have to set the rules and stick by them or counting is arbitrary and capricious. Whole numbers are a good thing and they’re even better for people like most gym rats who probably wouldn’t know a fraction if it hit them in the head. So I know I only did five rounds. Still, I feel like the ref cheated me somehow. I blame society.

Anyway, I should get on with my evening and start with my counting of sheep. Or maybe just thinking of beautiful women in sundresses with bushels of peaches, a thought triggered by the song Peaches by The Presidents of the USA that is stuck in my head. OK, so maybe I’ll watch some music videos on YouTube and then start counting sheep. Maybe some Duran Duran…

You know there’s something fishy when your sister’s dinner came to $10 and yours came to $91. She only had a salad (at Ringside! the horror!) and I had a steak, two glasses of wine, and cheesecake. I figure the only thing healthy about it was the grapes in the wine and the blueberries in the cheesecake. All that working out for naught! It was a friend’s birthday party and we only get together twice a year, usually, at the Ringside and it’s another group where we could talk all night. In fact, I quit going to their get-togethers a while ago because I’d be the first one to leave at 3AM. We’d all just sit around and talk that long and we weren’t even drinking. I enjoyed it, but I’m old and I also enjoy my sleep.

Speaking of sleep, something kept me up late last night. I wasn’t able to sleep really well and it was one of those nights where you could swear you were up tossing and turning the whole time. It just seems odd to me when I’m usually doing the opposite and sleeping all day long. I wish I could just get the hang of not sleeping while I’m at work.

It’s Thanksgiving weekend and I can’t believe how much I’ve actually eaten. I know “’tis the season” but really, steak from Costco on Wednesday, too much delicious turkey at my sister’s on Thursday, leftovers from my sister’s on Friday, an outing to 50 Plates on Saturday, and tomorrow (or later today depending on what time this gets posted) I’m going to a birthday party at Ringside. I lost a bunch of weight when I got back from Japan because my mom was out of town but I’m making up for it now. There’s a 850 lb limit on what I’m supposed to carry in my Civic and I may hit that limit if I’m not careful.

Of course i usually get sick during long weekends instead of during the work week. I mean, my job has a fairly liberal sick leave policy so I should get sick during the week, right? I suppose I’m busy enough at work that being sick during the weekend is just as well. I don’t have to go back and clean up after the mess I’ve made by being away.

I even had to leave the gym early because I got a crick in my neck during the workout and then my lower back started to hurt. So I sat around watching movies today. I think I’ve known that I don’t like breakup movies and now I can remember why. My last breakup was years ago, but nothing good has happened because of it. I don’t need a movie to remind me of how miserable that can make you feel and I have no idea whether I’m ever going to have a new relationship like the one that ends those movies.

Well, off to take more ibuprofen and hope that my back feels better soon. I think the last time I hurt my back I was sick as well, and that time I was out for an entire month. At least the expensive bits of my tile are in now, and the thing I have to look forward to — my bathroom — is getting closer to completion.