| Keepin' in "Shape" |
[Aug. 19th, 2009|12:29 pm] |
I feel obligated to comment about the fact that I do have a shape... just not my (or anyone else's) preferred one ;).
Since I started the MBA program, my metabolism has completely shifted. Partly due to long hours of "working hard and playing hard" some things are innocuous, and probably societal, since I now have a taste for beer and coffee that I never had before. Along the way I also started drinking red wine, instead of white, as well.
Other things probably have to do with my age and make me grumpy. While I still weigh the same as I always have (165-170), now it's all settled around my waist. It's not a car tire, but it's definitely past a bike tire. I also eat a lot more often than I used to. No-one likes a scrawny guy with a pot-belly, so I knew it was time to do something about it.
I tried a couple different ways to get going (since i want to "get in shape", not truly diet) and have found a couple that seem to be working:
"Diet": I now eat only one dessert a day. The big catch is, since I'm trying to keep under 50grams of added empty sugars a day, that I also force myself to count a bottle of soda as "dessert". I'm not cutting out dessert entirely, and I can always have that special treat *tomorrow* if I've unfortunately already drank that bottle of soda *today*, so I seem to be able to fool my brain into going along with this approach. When I started counting soda as dessert (really, what else can it be?) I was quite surprised at how many "desserts" I was eating a day: one candy bar in the morning, a couple of sodas in the afternoon, and not to forget an ice cream after dinner. Desserts add up quite quickly when you're not paying attention.
Exercise: So I'm taking care of the "diet" (more or less) to shed empty sugars and still treat myself once a day, but what about the exercise? Using StumbleUpon I came across "The Official British Army Fitness Programme." I've been a lot more successful following this than anything I've tried to do on my own- mostly because it builds up rather slowly, with every other day being a rest day in the beginning. I'm only a few weeks into it however, and its definitely starting to kick my butt. I'm no 19 year old army recruit, so I imagine I'll just repeat weeks as necessary and take it slow.
But I'm more optimistic about getting in shape than I have been since high school! |
|
|
| Notes on Swiss Family Robinson |
[Aug. 10th, 2009|05:00 pm] |
I have been reading a lot of classic books that i have never read, but should have, as well as revisiting the occasional book that I haven't read since childhood. Recent books finished within the past month include "Journey to the Center of the Earth" and "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea" by Jules Verne, "2001/2010/2061" by Arthur C. Clarke, and "A Wind in the Willows" by Kenneth Grahame.
Today I just finished "Swiss Family Robinson" by Johann Wyss.
Well. It was a surprisingly dense and difficult read for a kid's book. It sat on my bed-side stand for a month as I read it in snatches before going to sleep- which it was quite good at helping with. I would even call it poorly written, which is surprising for something considered a classic! Part of this may possibly be due to bad translation- my version is a 1940 fifth printing- and it is possible that the grammatical awkwardness is attributable to that. Frankly however, the story itself is just as bad. The story is really just a tale of how every conceivable useful plant and useful/dangerous animal from *every* continent was found on the island. Unfortunately for the animals, the common result of metting the Family Swiss was to be killed or, extremely rarely, forcefully domesticated.
You scoff, but there were probably, literally, over 200 animals killed by the family in the course of the narrative. Everything from porcupines, to boa constrictors, to alligators, to jackals, wolfs, bears, elephants, ostriches, lions, warthogs, seals, whales, doves, ducks, geese, penguins, monkeys, orangutans.... ad nauseum. It was amazing- even if you discount the amazingly laughable density and variety of animals (which is duplicated by the fauna, but at least the plants can't be shot!). Every chapter is a natural history lesson in how to defeat and colonize the land, mainly by butchering it's natural inhabitants or drastically altering the landscape to be more useful. Literally EVERY TIME a group of animals is stumbled across the family does its best to shoot them all, and then extremely occasionally they domesticate a lone wounded survivor! On more than one occasion after killing every animal in a herd/flock/pride/whatever they introspectively comment that it would have been nice to capture one instead.... ... ... the mind boggles. They even kept a museum of their stuffed and preserved conquests.
I completely recognized that "it was a different time" but the book seems insanely horrible now. Halfway through the book I was reading it just to see what new and exciting animal they would shoot dead next!
I did try to find online a list of the animal deaths in Swiss Family Robinson. I imagined that someone other than me has probably been just as startled by the sheer slaughter of everything the family came across, but no joy.
One good think came out of reading it: I now have the urge to add the move to my netflix list. I loved it as a kid! |
|
|
| Life Update |
[Jul. 15th, 2009|08:22 pm] |
Hi-de-ho, good neighbors. It's been almost two years since I actually posted! Much has happened, but the primary reason I have been less active online than I have ever been since college is that I was getting my MBA at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
At the time two years ago, I figured that with the economy souring that it was a good time to head back to school. By the time I graduated, the economy would be picking up again and it would be easy to find a job in a new field. Well... that plan obviously didn't work out too well ;).
I graduated with concentrations in New Product Creation, and Finance, and a couple of academic awards. I hope all the money spent on it will pay off in the long run!
So, while hunting for a full-time job, some friends and I are doing management consulting on the side. Mostly in strategic management, including both corporate strategy and strategic marketing and sales, but also some innovation management and some IT Project Management, It's interesting, but getting the work is slow and unpredictable, and until we build of a solid book of business and get a significant number of recommendations from satisfied clients it doesn't pay that great either.
In other life news, I am volunteering as a project manager for the local historical society. My current project is managing the donation of a 1978 Silver Anniversary Edition Indy 500 Corvette Pace car. It's been driven only 9.7 miles... very cool. It was donated with the intent for the historical society to auction it off and there's a lot of logistic involved in transporting the car, promoting the event, and determining how we want to auction it.
I've also taken up geocaching on my weekends, and I've become quite the home handyman over the past two years. And during the high-pressure work-hard/play-hard experience of the MBA program I've also learned how to like beer. Scary, that.
That's about it for me. 60-80 hours a week of classes, homework, projects and team meetings didn't leave much spare time for more hobbies!
Lady K is still in medical school and taking board exams in a week in a half. She's been hiding at her parents house in Silver Spring, MD for the past month studying for insanely long hours. She's stressing and worried, but I know she's going to do great!
Cheers,
Dan |
|
|
| Well, that's just whacked... |
[Aug. 24th, 2007|12:30 am] |
|
You are The Devil
Materiality. Material Force. Material temptation; sometimes obsession
The Devil is often a great card for business success; hard work and ambition.
Perhaps the most misunderstood of all the major arcana, the Devil is not really "Satan" at all, but Pan the half-goat nature god and/or Dionysius. These are gods of pleasure and abandon, of wild behavior and unbridled desires. This is a card about ambitions; it is also synonymous with temptation and addiction. On the flip side, however, the card can be a warning to someone who is too restrained, someone who never allows themselves to get passionate or messy or wild - or ambitious. This, too, is a form of enslavement. As a person, the Devil can stand for a man of money or erotic power, aggressive, controlling, or just persuasive. This is not to say a bad man, but certainly a powerful man who is hard to resist. The important thing is to remember that any chain is freely worn. In most cases, you are enslaved only because you allow it.
What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out. |
|
|
| Wow |
[Jul. 24th, 2007|08:31 am] |
Siem Reap, Angkor City, and Angkor Wat are amazing. I guess that explains the crush of tourists, but it was definitely worth it. Think of the biggest
ruin you've ever seen. Now multiply it by at least ten times and
you might come close to how big this anthropological wonder is. It's an entire ruined city that used to be home to over a million people. A lot of
it is gone, because the houses of normal people were built of wood, but the surrounding moat, city walls, and dozens of temples (including the astonishing Angkor Wat) remain.
We took 1GB of photos a day here, and we still wish we had a larger memory chip!
We're done now. A month in Southeast asia, and it's been amazing. We're ready to be back in the U.S. though, with friends and family, and much more reasonable temperatures! So, home again, home again, lickety-split!
"There's no place like home, there's no place like home, there's no place like home!". |
|
|
| Siem Reap |
[Jul. 21st, 2007|10:07 pm] |
Well, we're in the Kingdom of Cambodia now. I swear that our pilot was some kind of topgun wanna-be. We made some crazy stand on the wing turns, which I'm pretty sure that a Airbus 320 isn't designed to do. About 5 seconds before touchdown he also accelerated the heck out of the plane and for a heart-thumping moment I thought he was trying to take off again. But no, he touched down and slammed on the brakes all that much harder.
The first impressions of the airport were "Wow, it's beautiful". And Siem Reap IS beautiful, but then we hooked up with our tour guide and (because of the lateness of our flight) we immediately headed out of the city down to Tonle Sap lake. Tonle Sap is a pretty amazing geologic feature (check out the Wikipedia article) and was truly interesting to visit- but the poverty of the boat people is astounding. Our tour guide says that very few of our tourism dollars actually goes to local Cambodians which makes it even sadder.
We're off to Angkor Wat itself in the morning. See you tomorrow; same Bat Time, same Bat Channel.
Cheers,
/Dan |
|
|
| Leaving Vietnam... |
[Jul. 21st, 2007|10:24 am] |
Livejournal can be so slow from here in Vietnam! I've given up on a couple of attempts to connect over the past few days.
We just spend a two-day "tour" of the Mekong River Delta. It's quite interesting- a truly different lifestyle. Having a boat there is as necessary as having a car in the U.S. If you don't have one, you really can't get anywhere!
We're are now heading out of Vietnam on our way to Cambodia. We're going to be there for only two nights as we visit the great religious center/ruins of Angkor Wat. After that we're heading home. It's been a long trip, and as much fun as it has been I'll be glad to see our house again! |
|
|
| More beaches |
[Jul. 17th, 2007|10:43 am] |
We spent yesterday relaxing on the beaches of Nha Trang. Our first order of business was a quick speedboat ride out to an island to see the local aquarium. The aquarium fish? Not so interesting. The aquarium itself? Wow. I've tried to find on-line pictures of the huge monstrosity of a concrete pirate ship that is the aquarium, but to no avail.
After that we spend the day speed-boating from snorkeling reef to remote beach to seaside restaurant and then back to the resort where we lounged some more at the pool. Very relaxing, but it probably makes for boring reading.
It was a very enjoyable day, except for the sunburn that I got. I was trying to be diligent about using sun block, and it isn't that bad, since I didn't even notice it until after we returned, but I'm still annoyed with myself.
Today, more pool-side relaxing and tennis.
Cheers,
/Dan |
|
|
| Nha Trang |
[Jul. 15th, 2007|09:42 pm] |
Miss K and I are still here in Vietnam. We've been enjoying (*cough*) the mysterious experience that is Vietnam Airlines. We've had two out of two domestic flights canceled, and after one of them we ended up in the wrong city.
Ho Chi Minh City is a pretty cosmopoletan place. It could be any (asian) international city. We went out and saw some more pagodas and temples, including the colorful and eccentric Cao Dai Holy See. Also we took some time to go crawling through Cu Chi Guerilla tunnels. Even though we were scrambling through the "king-sized" tourist version they were more than claustrophobic enough.
We then made our way (see "Vietnam Airlines" reference in the first paragraph) to Nha Trang, which is a beach/resort city. This is where living on $20/night at guesthouses pays off. We're at the very Fahbulous Sunrise Resort. You have to laugh about going to a seaside resort and then spending most of our time at the pool, but we're paying enough for that luxury!
Earlier today we took a taxi out to the Long Son temple to see the famous White Buddha. He's a pretty big fellow, 24 meters from lotus to crown. He's near relative, the "Reclining Buddha" is just as big.
Gotta run- minutes are up and no time to spell check! |
|
|
| Hue on Thu Wheels |
[Jul. 9th, 2007|03:52 pm] |
I actually popped quite a good fever that night, but some Tylenol got it down the next morning so we were able to go out for the day. We saw the Citadel and the Imperial City (very much along the lines of the Forbidding City in Beijing, China). We also visited three different tombs of past kings. They were all very beautiful and impressive. On top of that we visited a Buddhist Pagoda complex (the one where that monk who drove down to Saigon and self-immolated came from just before the Vietnam War War of American Aggression. They have his baby blue car up on blocks with a picture of him lighting up over it. Frankly a little weird and disturbing...).
In Hue we also stopped at a couple of the famous Hiker hangouts for backpacking travelers like us- The "Stop and Go Cafe" and "Cafe on Thu Wheels". Both very eccentric but fun hangouts. We asked that Ms. Thu put on the Wimbledon finals and she did, so we caught Federer's win over Nadal while drinking local beers. Pretty nice.
Hue is a great town. I definitely recommend that everyone stop in for a couple nights. Just like my "Rough Guide" book says, there doesn't seem to be much about the town itself (beyond the spectacular tombs/citadel/pagodas/temples/Chinese assembly halls), but staying the extra night beyond what we intended let us get a feel for the people and backpacker culture in-town and that just put Hue right up there as one of the prime highlights of the trip. Anywhere else, it would have been one of "The" highlights for a trip- except that Vietnam has been so universally amazing.
Hue's had only one real downside- it's the first place in Vietnam where we encountered beggars. Their absence had been so notable everywhere else in Vietnam that we figured they were either kicked out of most towns or the communist system makes it so that needy people are well enough cared for that they don't need to beg. It is a remarkable difference from India. But, we found them in Hue, and sometimes it was pretty sad. Apart from the kids and old people hitting you up for loose change, there were also a lot of very disfigured people. The Vietnam War looms so big in the American psyche, that I couldn't help but wonder how many of the maimed and disfigured people were suffering because of "us". However, the Vietnam War was just one of a multitude of wars the Vietnamese people had about that time anyway (the french, the chinese, the cambodians). Of course "we" had Agent Orange and Napalm...
Hue still gets "Two-Thumbs Way Up" though.
We departed Hue by the morning train for Da Nang. There isn't much to speak of in Da Nang, except for the Museum of Cham Sculpture. The Cham were an empire around the time of Europe's middle ages that flourished in Vietnam. They were a buddhist society and built many impressive temples (although not on the scale of Angkor Wat, which we'll be visiting at the end of our trip). They eventually got conquered and slowly assimilated by the Viet peoples, but they left behind some very impressive ruins. The museum was a recommended first stop before heading out into the countryside to go ruin-spotting sometime this week. It was well worth it too.
After the museum we caught a taxi south toward our final destination of Hoi An. We made a quick stop at "Marble Mountain" which is a huge abutment of a mountain just popping out of the plains near the coast. There are several pagodas and shrines up on it, but we didn't hike up the mountain to see them (I'm still under the weather- possible an ear infection too *gah*). But, at the base of the mountain you see it's namesake put to work. There are dozens of small stone-working shops, and a couple HUGE ones. We visited a "Marble Garden" which was basically a beautiful mountainside garden packed with, oh let's say 10,000, statues, monuments, gizmos, pretty-doodads, reliefs, icons, altars, "patio sets", etc. We could only go "wow". We knew that we were being "sold" when our taxi driver stopped there, but it was beautiful and stunning. Lady K asked the price for a huge fish/boat marble table absolutely encrusted with beautiful design and which include 6 large marble chairs and it was $1,800 USD, including shipping. A real bargain- if we weren't on a budget and if it wouldn't likely have caused out porch to collapse instantly into the ground!
After that we drove across the main road- and we were at China Beach. It was very beautiful. A wonderful beach, mountains behind us, and down the coastline. It wasn't crowded at all- just a line of chairs and umbrellas out on the beach and about 15 or so tourists laying out catching rays. Unfortunately Lady K was absolutely hounded on the "boardwalk" by a girl trying to sell necklaces. When I intervened and told her extremely directly (although very politely and softly) "No, Thank You", she faded back, but then she got yelled at by someone (her mother?) and she returned to hounding us. We formulated the theory that she wouldn't follow us out onto the beach since whoever is in charge of the place probably wants the tourist to have a somewhat pleasant experience, but about 50 yards toward the line of chairs and water the woman and some other person came running after us yelling incomprehensible Vietnamese. I don't know if we made some kind of boo-boo. They didn't seem like she was trying to stop us but they were doing so much yelling near us back to people on the boardwalk that it was an incredibly unpleasant experience. We simply turned around, returned to our taxi, and continued on our way.
Arriving in Hoi An, we checked into the Thieu Thanh hotel. It was recommended to us by a hiker couple that we met in Sa Pa and so far it appears that their recommendation was right on. It's a beautiful and pleasant mini-hotel and I think we'll be happy here for the next couple of days. Hoi An has a lot to see, so it's nice to have such a nice place to base ourself out of.
I'm sorry that I haven't uploaded any photos for anyone to see. Can anyone recommend an easy and feasible "one-stop" method of getting our photos into my journal while traveling? All our photos are very large (3-5M) and I don't want to sit around resizing photos before uploading them somewhere.
More to come.
Cheers,
/Dan |
|
|
| Way? No, Hue! |
[Jul. 7th, 2007|09:18 pm] |
Ha Long Bay was quite pretty. I would still pick the coast of Maine over it for beauty though! But it was nice to sleep on board the junk in the bay, see all the strange geologic formations, and take the chance to go swimming. I was afraid that the bay would make the heat would be all the more humid and oppressive, but fortunately nice sea breezes more than compensated.
While at the bay we had the opportunity to go kiyaking, and also mountain biking across Cat Ba island. We were supposed to go trekking into the wildlife preserved on Cat Ba island at the end of our mountain bike ride, but the weather turned bad so we had to cut that part of the plan short.
In fact, the weather turned quite bad. We were in for a typhoon to actually hit us overnight and it was uncertain whether we would be able to get off the island the next morning due to the waves being too large for the ferries to dock. As it turned out, we lost power (and more importantly, A/C) several times, but the typhoon made it's way out to the ocean and we left only a few hours behind schedule.
Arriving back in Hanoi we caught our train for Hue. That was a long 11 hours of train ride. Someone actually unlocked our compartment door in the night and opened it, but it fetched up against a "coat hanger" security device that folds out of the door. He told us "Hue" several times before going away which didn't make sense since we were still 7 hours away from there. We can only really wonder what that was all about.
Hue seems nice enough. We splurged on the $30/night deluxe hotel. It's pretty nice, and even has a computer with free internet in the room. Unfortunately, I seem to have developed a cold/fever so we didn't do too much after arriving in town, and just visited a few Chinese Assembly Halls (Hue was/is a big mercantile town from back in the day and each ethnic community actually had it's own government and rules existing in parallel with the others. The Chinese were the largest single presence). Tomorrow we have a full day planned though, so take a look here later.
Cheers,
/Dan |
|
|
| (no subject) |
[Jul. 2nd, 2007|10:43 pm] |
We woke up to rain again this morning- we were hoping that things would dry off and let us drive way out to see a certain waterfall. We tried anyway, but the road was under construction so everything was a muddy mess. After we skidded out and fell over on our motorcycle about a half kilometer into the construction (to the amusement of the workers, who also informed us that there was another 8km of construction ahead of us), we turned around and headed out other roads. The only pretty waterfalls we saw were far away, but we had more very nice views of valleys and mountains and villages.
Then the monsoon came.
So we turned around again, and putt-putted the seven kilometers back to Sa Pa in a torrential downpour. We're far enough up in the mountains that we were freezing by the time we got back and gratefully accepted the offer of a shower from the Cat Cat Hotel people, even though we had already checked out for the day. If you're ever in Sa Pa, stay with them!
Otherwise, we did lots of trawling around in the markets, buying souvenirs. Some Black Hmong girl (through some convoluted humorous thought train) decided that Lady K didn't listen to me well enough, and that she (the girl) was going to go with me on the motorcycle instead to be my wife. Then she offered to sell me back if Lady K bought a purse from her :). On one hand, she was being cutely flattering, but on the other hand I thought my selling price was way too low! I offered a compromise options and suggested that they could both be my wife which she thought was an extremely funny idea, but in the end she decided against the idea :).
Tonight we take the overnight train back to Hanoi and hook up with our Ha Long Bay tour in the morning. We'll be on the train tonight, and sleeping on a boat in the bay tomorrow night, so my next post may not be for a while.
Cheers,
/Dan |
|
|
| The North-West mountains - Sa Pa |
[Jul. 2nd, 2007|06:23 pm] |
Hi all, we're doing well here in Vietnam. We are currently at the "Cat Cat Hotel" in Sa Pa, which is in the northwest of the country very near China. Outside our hotel across the narrow valley is the Fancy Pants (Fan Si Pan) Mountain, the highest in the country. It's great.
Last night we stayed at the Baguettes et Chocolate guesthouse. It's a mini "training guesthouse". It trains local ethnic minorities about the industry to help give them marketable skills. It was a very nice and cozy place.
We ended up staying an extra night in town because of train/timing issues and tonight we are at the "Cat Cat Hotel". Their website is at http://www.catcathotel.com. I definitely recommend you take a look at the website and let the home-page banner run. As you will see the view is amazing.
The whole point of Sa Pa is that it is the largest town around. There are ethnic minority villages all around. Single homesteads, hamlets of 2-4 houses, and the very rare larger village fill the valleys and mountains around (and I really mean that they "fill the mountains". These people can install a rice paddy almost anywhere, and corn often climbs near vertical "fields" the rest of the way up the mountain!).
They all come to town at various times during the week to go to market for the buying of supplies and selling their food and crafts. It's absolutely amazing, with everyone in their traditional attire.
You have the camera shy "Red Dao", the very colorful "Flower Hmong" (who we saw mostly around Bac Ha where we stopped in yesterday for the big Saturday market over by the chinese border) and the very business-minded "Black Hmong". And those are just the local-ish 3 groups out of 54 ethnic minorities in Vietnam. The Black H'mong are a riot- they would sell you anything, and they're funny about it too (funny, they have a good subtle and not-so-subtle, not funny "haha, look at them", I mean). Even when they aren't giving you the hard sell, they're still thinking about it. One budding entrepreneur of about 6 years old tried selling me a shirt from across the street as we walked into Cat Cat Hotel, using near perfect english, and when I said I didn't need it she said "Why not?" I guess that her humor doesn't carry through to livejournal, but it was obvious from her tone of voice that she had encountered a nearly scandalous situation and that if I didn't want it that it was my own (very large) loss!
Tomorrow, if the weather gets a little less rainy, we'll try to take a longer trip out to explore more far-flung villages and enjoy the majestic scenery, and then catch the over-night sleeper train where we will hook up with a tour to the ocean and Ha Long Bay.
Cheers,
/Dan |
|
|
| (no subject) |
[Jun. 30th, 2007|06:59 pm] |
Lady K and I spent the day at the Vietnamese Ethnology Museum. I was looking forward to being inside an airconditioned museum instead of a sweltering pagoda for a change. Silly me! Thankfully it rained a lot this morning which kept the heat down, so the non-airconditioned museum was only MOSTLY-unbearable. Thankfully there were a number of doors to duck outside and get a breath of cool misty air. I can't imagine that museum on a hot day!
The exhibits were, of course, excellent. I've been really impressed with the things we've seen in Vietnam. There is a lot of people, and the roads are clogged and crowded, yet everything stays in pretty good shape. There is trash in the streets, for example, but it's all "biodegradable". Paper and plastic trash isn't really around. The pagodas, temples, museums, restaurants, and other places we've been to have been clean and welcoming. The museum exhibits have been very interesting, and have English translations that are generally very understandable and informative.
Anyway; we learned a lot at the Ethnology Museum. There are about a ten large minority groups here in Vietnam, and another forty or so smaller ones. We learned a lot about all of them today. The museum even had a large outdoor park where actual architectural examples of the different ethnicities were installed- houses and huts bought, picked up, and moved to the museum. There are some hugely impressive ones. There is no way I can really describe everything- definitely take the time to google a bit about Vietnam Ethnic Minorities.
Tonight we're taking the sleeper train to Sa Pa. Sa Pa is way up in the northwest highlands where there are several minority villiages within day-walking distance. Sa Pa itself is supposedly getting to be a bit overrun with tourists- pretty soon there will be pony-rides and carnies- but for now the traditional lifestyle around it is still thriving. We hope to catch market day in Sa Pa or one of the outlying villiages when all the different peoples come out of the mountains and woods to meet in a big colorful multi-lingual confusion.
I'll let you know what it was like when we get back! |
|
|
| Hanoi, Hanoi |
[Jun. 29th, 2007|09:31 pm] |
Hanoi is pretty cool. I don't mean temperature of course. It's pretty gosh-darn hot and humid! But, once you manage to pant your way beyond that, there is quite a bit to see! Keya and I have seen Ho Chi Minh's Mausoleum, the Ho Chi Minh Museum, the Temple of Literature, the One-Pillar Pagoda, the central lake, the Old City, the War Museum, St. Joseph's Cathedral, a number of other pagoda's and temples that I've already forgotten the names to, and enjoyed quite a bit of vietnamese food.
Pretty cool. |
|
|
| Welcome from Vietnam! |
[Jun. 28th, 2007|08:09 am] |
|
Keya and I have reached Hanoi, Vietnam and have pretty much recuperated from the 20+ hours of travelling to get here. Not much to report yet, but we're looking forward to exploring! |
|
|
| Weekend Update |
[May. 20th, 2007|10:10 pm] |
My eyes are healing up nicely. They start to ache toward the middle afternoon and they are still light sensitive, but other than a little extra glare around bright lights at night my vision is really great. I'm at 20/15 in my left eye, and 20/20+2 in my right eye. I can't imagine my vision continuing to improve at this point, but they say it will!
I spent my first real weekend doing outdoor chores at our new house. Turning veggie and flower gardens, cleaning out the gutters which obviously hadn't been done in years, removing the tree growing behind the chimney (wtf?), fixing up the birdfeeder, etc. I'm tired, sore, and feeling pretty good about it. |
|
|
| Crazy, Crazy! |
[May. 14th, 2007|01:16 pm] |
Lady K and I move into our new house on May 5th. That was over a week ago now but boxes are still everywhere, and probably will be for many weeks to come. We're happy to finally have our own home, but we're suddenly confronted with a huge "TODO" list of things that need to be bought or repaired. I've been told that this TODO list will never go away, but will only morph into ever more complicated wishes and desires, assuming that nothing significant fails.
The move itself was like a complex dance routine. First, we rushed down to Silver Spring, MD on friday afternoon. Saturday morning we met the movers at our storage space. Several hours there, then we move to the house in Silver Spring, where several more hours were spent packing. Then Lady K and I zoomed back up to the apartment in Albany. Around noontime on Sunday the movers showed up and packed all of our apartment into the moving truck. There was a minor snafu where they tried to hold our sofa hostage for extra tips to carry it down the 6 flights of stairs (since it was too big for the elevator) even though that had been pre-negotiated, with the net result being that I told them to leave it behind, which was not what they were expecting. For the rest of the move they acted rather guilty and were quite efficient. I imagine that they were trying to recoup some goodwill in order to save their tips. Finally we went up the river to the new Troy house where the movers unloaded well into the late afternoon hours, and we spent the first night in our new house.
Also, this last Friday I had Bladeless LASIK eye surgury. My vision is great, but the surgury itself was rather traumatic. There were lots of big machines, I was being knocked and prodded around but also told to stay still, lots of lights, not very communicative doctors, and no pill to help me relax. I don't know anyone else who has had the surgury who didn't have a relaxant first. I know know why it's needed, and wonder why I wasn't given any. For the next several days my eyes were quite sore, and I've been wearing a pair of big ugly wraparound sunglasses for protection which makes it rather difficult to get stuff done at night.
I'll write my first Appalachian Trail Redux posting soon. I'm running behind this week for some reason! |
|
|
| navigation |
| [ |
viewing |
| |
most recent entries |
] |
| [ |
go |
| |
earlier |
] |
| |
|
|
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
elgatocurioso's journal