Plans are firming up and I think I need my geek time in Akihabara. And maybe I need to buy some weird stuff at Tokyu Hands, which I know is in Shinjuku. OK, so there’s one in Osaka, and one in Kobe that I’ve been to, but I need an excuse to go to Tokyo. Which is odd because all I ever do is follow my usual path from the Nishishinjuku hotel to Akihabara to Mos Burger and back. I’m not exactly Mr. Exciting, but it makes me happy. It’s easier when it’s easy.

So there’s some sort of HDMI cable scam going on. I can get them at a cable store very near work for $10-20 but I think Best Buy sells them for about $50. I checked to see how much it would cost to buy an HDMI splitter, so I could play video from my DVR on one or both of the TVs I have in my “office” but it was a lot more expensive than I first thought. $58 at the cable store, and $39 for the same unit (or so it seems) at the computer store that’s 200 yards away. And I was told that HDMI splitters didn’t always work very well.

They were right in one sense. The splitter quit working after about 20 minutes and I determined that the wall wart was dead. Time to see if I can exchange it for a working unit.

And I still haven’t decided whether I’m going to Tokyo or not. Sheesh.

Yesterday I spent some time at Storables getting some racks for the new laundry room, but the more unique thing I did was watch my next door neighbor testing for his black belt in Aikido. He did pretty darn well from my perspective and I heard the testers gave him pretty positive feedback as well.

I’m planning on going to Japan with my mom and my sister again this fall, and we’re trying to decide whether to skip Tokyo and stick to Western Japan. I was never a big fan of Tokyo, but it’s actually fun to visit as well. I guess if we fly into the Kansai International airport (which I’ve actually never been to) we can avoid a long train ride. But that also means we miss seeing some friends in Tokyo and I can’t make my yearly pilgrimage to Akihabara Electric Town. What to do…

OK, this will be short, but I went and bought TWO roller blinds today. First my mom measured wrong and it was too small, then I measured wrong and it seems like it’s just a little too big. Sheesh.

OK, it’s time to hit the hay.

It’s rainy and cold and it’s only September.September in Oregon is usually our best month. Our heater even started up a couple of days ago and I had to run around readjusting all the registers so the downstairs would heat and the upstairs wouldn’t. (I like it a little colder upstairs.)

I decided I should keep this short because I’m pretty tired and the stupid Plants vs Zombies game is calling to me. Curse my addictions.

Oh, and someone commented on my old post about an old grade school classmate Holly Reinhorn who was pretty and a little mean, but that’s how things are in grade school. I still have a poor opinion of her, and no one seems to have that much nice to say about her high school self, either. Now she’s married to Rainn Wilson, who I don’t find all that funny or interesting. Really, I still don’t see how people are finding my blog unless they “know” my sister. Maybe they’re googling for things I write about. I’m entitled to my opinion after all, and it’s not like anyone is forced to read what I write. I’d be a lot more careful if they were.

Well, I was out late a couple of nights on this three day weekend and I wasn’t feeling all that great today. One of the two things I had on my list never happened (experimenting with paint stripper) but I did finish installing the incredibly expensive light switches in the hallway and removed the mirror from the dining room. I’m not sure what the previous owners were thinking, but they covered up a window with wood paneling and a giant mirror. Unfortunately, I broke the giant mirror ON MY SHIN which probably means seven more days of bad luck while my shin hurts and bleeds all over the inside of my pants. And the wall under the wood paneling looks like absolute crap. I now have to decide what to do about that wall.

I had other plans but I had a stomach ache in the middle of the day. Most Mondays that would mean that I could take a day off from the gym, but the holiday meant the gym was only open in the morning and so the partner workout almost killed me BEFORE I had the stomach ache. It also gave me an excuse to download Plants vs. Zombies and sit around playing that.

Oh, and the stomach ache might have just been from eating a second dinner late last night. Sean wanted to go see a movie and we saw The American, but I think that was just an excuse to go to Ringside for their happy hour again. I will say that the trailer showed all the action in the movie (which really wasn’t that much) but I did enjoy the slower pace.

I should keep this short since I should try to get some sleep but I’m out late again on a school night. Last night I was invited out to see a band, and I went. I got back early enough (11-ish) but it takes me a while to wind down.

Today my friend Sean and I were going out to get burgers, but he was going to have to beg off because he needed to hook up his ailing mom’s iPad. The key words here are friend, ailing mom, and help with computers. How could I turn down that kind of request for help? I got all sorts of stuff ready but we didn’t need it. What he really needed was backup in case there were some problems. It took some time but we got everything working with little trouble, though installing iTunes on an old computer took some time.

Afterwards we went to Ringside and had some Happy Hour grub. The food there is phenomenal. Even after we had stuffed ourselves with steak bites, crab cakes, and french dips, we still got the burger and it still ranked in the top three. It was taste, and not hunger, that made that one of the best.

Now it’s even later because I promised my mom I’d test-drive her new shower. The plumber had cross-threaded the shower attachment, and it took me some time to diagnose and fix it. Ah, well, can’t have my mom in a faulty shower.

I guess I don’t agree with all of the exercise seminars I go to, but Chip Conrad once pointed out something that Bruce Lee said, and Steve Maxwell also used the same quote:

”Adapt what is useful, reject what is useless, and add what is specifically your own.”

and

“Use only that which works, and take it from any place you can find it.”

I don’t have a sport I’m training for, and there’s nothing I’m trying to be the best at. I just want to get through life in a little better shape and still eat those things I’m not supposed to eat. Heck, Steve Maxwell was talking about some awful and harmful diet drug that let a guy eat a whole ice cream cake every night and all I could think of is how tasty those Baskin-Robbins clown face cakes are.

I know eating enough calories for a whole week and then taking some kidney-killing drug is as ridiculous as my chance of winning the lottery, but I fantasize about that as well. I even buy tens of dollars of lottery tickets each year! I even fantasize about going out with women who don’t know I exist, because my super power is invisibility to attractive women. I know some of them just learn to face towards the sound of my voice that they can barely discern above the background noise, but in general I think I could be a spy. But my second super power is always getting caught at doing bad things, and my third super power is an inability to keep secrets.

Oh yeah. Super powers. I’m quite the catch.

Today started out GREAT. A car wreck added 20 minutes to my usually 25 minute commute. Two of the three elevators at work were out because they wanted to paint the doorways. The bathroom by my office was closed so I had to walk across the building. And tomorrow we’re supposed to have a fire drill. Hooray for all of that.

Today we did the same ball slam/dumbbell snatch ladder that we did two weeks ago. This time I wasn’t DFL (though I was slower than I’d like) and took almost two minutes off my last time. The only difference was that I wasn’t feeling like throwing up the whole time (only part of the time). At least it’s an improvement.

I did some electrical work today that I know I’m capable of doing. However, replacing four outlets and seven switches and putting in four lighting fixtures took all afternoon. I think it could have taken longer but I ran out of parts.

I was tired today after another Steve Maxwell seminar yesterday. I enjoyed it but I heard a lot of complaints. It wasn’t a certification, but then again it didn’t seem like a normal clinic either. I guess the worst part was that it should been one or the other (or both) but it was neither. I suppose I got something out of it, so that’s about as much as I could ask for.

I’m not sure why I’m so tired. I think I may not be 100% because I can’t have lost all my fitness in three days off, can I? Let’s see, what did we do? Six squats holding a heavy medicine ball then carrying it against our chests (making it hard to breathe) down to a cone and back. Then sprint to the corner, and then do a side plank for 45 seconds. Oh, we do that four times, and the medicine balls I used were 60#, 70#, 80# & 90#.

Then we did a rope climb, hip slap, and knee tuck combo. Rope climb without my feet. Hip slap is where you’re almost doing a handstand against the wall and then slap your hip with alternating hands. I think we did that three times?

Oh, we finished with burpees and squat hops.

I think I know why I’m tired. (Plus, I’m probably not 100% recovered yet.)

Well I didn’t make it through Monday, or go to work Tuesday, and I felt bad enough after work today to stay home from the gym. I’m not that sick but I seem to have what at least one of my co-workers did, where you just feel tired and not too horrible. A mild and miserable cold.

Having a mild and miserable cold just means there’s not much else going on. I’ve had enough time in front of my computer to start feeding my RFID obsession (trying to read some cards for no good reason when I know it’s just going to hold a serial number). That’s a nerd’s life, though.