A 'lil HooHaa

So it’s now 2006.

I am willing to bet many of you made your resolutions and don’t plan on going through with them, eh? Yeah, I know all about that. I used to be the same way. Now I just don’t believe in making resolutions.

However, this year I am going to try and make myself a bit of a better person, both in mind and body. It’s not a resolution per say, rather something I feel I finally need to do and with a little disturbing news from the Doc, I figured it was a good time to get things in order. No need to check out of Hotel Earth early, so I got a good wakeup call before anything got real bad. I’ll get into that as well as some other things with this entry.

Several weeks ago I went to the doctor for a checkup. Normal stuff, but he had taken some blood recently to check some things. Anyway, turns out my blood sugar is a bit high for his liking, so blood test two. Well, that comes back a little higher and he’s not liking it at all. So he says he believes I’m a borderline diabetic and I need to start watching things.

For those who don’t know me as well as others, I’m not a tiny guy. I’m not huge by any means, but I’m in that middle area of where I could use to shed a bunch of pounds to get me back down to a good fighting weight. But, I also wear it well, so I can hide it and all that. Either way, I know to get healthy, I need to start watching shit.

That all also adds to the fact that I already have high blood pressure and am on some meds for that. So, put it all together and I was being told this good news from the Doc. I wasn’t shocked, upset or whatever — which I think threw him off guard. Either way, I was like, “OK, so what do I have to do?”

Well, I’m on a pretty strict diet now. 1,400 calories (ugh) and not a lot of goodies. I’ve been starting to ride the exercise bike I bought not too long ago and seeing what I can do to get this shit flowing. And, more importantly, make sure none of these problems become bigger problems — ie: full-blown diabetes.

I have to visit a dietitian on Wednesday and I’m hoping she makes a little more sense of this than the Doc did. He didn’t tell me a lot, rather gave me some things to read. I’ve stayed on course pretty well, I’ve dropped some weight to get rolling and my blood sugar has been extremely good. So I know things are going well.

That said, I saw this light (not for real, but you know what I mean) when all this was coming about. It made me look at who I was, where I was and hopefully trying to figure out what the hell I want to do with myself. My situation is far from perfect right now, but I know I can do stuff now to make things better. So, I’ve made a pact with myself to try and better my own existence, which will hopefully lead me to be happier and more confident in certain aspects of my life.

There are several things I’ve wanted to do for a couple of years now. That being meditation and yoga. The two, I feel, would help me a lot in regard to stress, everyday life and hopefully just to make me relax and become a better person. So, I’ll be ordering (likely tonight) books on Amazon about it. Of course, both will be Dummies books, as those really spell things out to you and how to do things.

I’m also not really a person of God, I don’t preach it, I don’t go to church and I don’t like it when others talk on and on about God and religion. That said, I do wonder what’s out there, have some of my own beliefs and am going to try and expand on a spirituality part of myself. So, to stay along the same lines, I’ll be buying “Spirituality for Dummies” as well, just to see what that has to offer and maybe give me some insight onto other beliefs and what’s out there.

Finally, in a different direction, I’m going to test out some aromatherapy. I like good spelling things, so that’s right up the line. But I know some people who use it and say it works wonders. So I’m going to try.

The goal of all this is to make me be a better person in my own eyes. I don’t want to get mad at stupid things anymore, I want stress to not be so crazy and I want to be able to relax. It’s pretty shitty when I get irritated with people driving so much. It shouldn’t bother me, considering I leave myself plenty of time to get where I want to be. The bottom line is that life is indeed short and rushing to be somewhere just defeats the purpose of it.

I can assure you that none of this means I’m turning into a hippy. That will never, ever happen. I do know some hippie-type females I think are pretty sweet, but that’s as far I’d go.

I will likely utilize this blog a bit more to update what is going on with me. I realize not a lot of people actually come and read the blogs, but it’s a good avenue for me to go just to throw some things down as they go through my mind. And truthfully, it’s a bit therapeutic to do so.

More later…

2 day i wuz reading shit on da net and i wuz like, r u serious? I mean, i know the net iz gr8, but 4 what things?

You can no doubt read what I just wrote, however, if it made you cringe, then you are in the same boat I am. Internet shorthand is taking over online — with IM programs, on message boards, chat rooms, blogs and everywhere else people communicate online.

It’s annoying. It’s frustrating. And truthfully, it’s just freaking lazy.

How hard is it to write “for” instead of “4?” Or “today” over “2day?” Hell, ones like “wuz” crack me up because it’s the same amount of letters as “was.” And the one-letter answers or comments, such as “u r” or something like that is the most annoying.

Just spell the word out.

I was visiting a website message board today — one that is for mods for message boards and things like that. Someone came on the board requesting help and I had to read it like three times just to realize what it said. Unfortunately, I can’t find it or I’d post part of it here so you could see what I mean.

One thing is for sure — my internet lingo sucks, so me trying to really get into writing something to show my point would probably fail as bad as these kids when they are forced to write normal.

I have no problem with the normal abbreviations — LOL, brb — crap like that. It’s well-known enough that people get it and it’s almost expected to use.

But now there seem to be abbreviations for anything and everything. For example, would you know what any of these things are:

BAK
CUL8R
DEGT
EOT
GAL

I didn’t either until Hockey_Goon did a google search and found this page of internet lingo: You too can talk in gibberish!

It seems like younger people I know who I run into online or more apt to speak like this. It’s easy, quick and they actually understand it. However, my older friends and family I speak with online don’t use it because they are either not lazy or don’t know any of it, either.

I just plead to all the people who actually use all this stuff to stop. I can’t deal with the headaches anymore!

In celebration of me reaching 10,000 posts, I figured I’d post a little something-something here as well.

Please remember, however, the milestone was reached through three different versions of the board. So I’ve watched it grow.

But on top of that, this community we all visit means a little more to me. It’s been a place I’ve been able to learn a lot of different things — about people, about building a website and about some computer language in regard to adding mods. Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t think I’ll be writing scrips of my own anytime soon, but I’ve gotten to the point where I at least realize why some of these things are inserted where they are.

The board has grown from a basic look to the point where I can put different skins and everything else. It’s nice to be able to give a place like this a feel of its own or a different look. I think the one we have now is pretty solid and we’ll probably keep it, with the exception of maybe a holiday feel soon.

What I’ve really gotten to love about the board since I first put this version on my site two years ago is that the people here are comfortable with one another and are pretty up front. The original pack was hand-selected by me as people I thought would make a good group to start posting. And now, we still like to screen a little, but we have a different varitey of people. The best part, however, is that we all seem to get along and can hold decent conversations on a range of topics. For the most part, too, politics is kept out of the loop, which I like.

The board now has the blog and gallery (when it gets fixed) feature, which I think are two awesome adds. Each aren’t used as much as I would like or hoped, but it’s good they get used some and it’s a sweet little addition to a community such as this.

What I really like though is, for the most part, everyone knows one anothers first names (sometimes last too), isn’t afraid to use it, but that we still refer to one another by the board name. Kind of a cool thing, I think.

So here’s to growing a little more and keeping it fun. Thanks for everyone being around for the time you have and here’s to many more.

And maybe Storm will eventually catch me in posts.

Also —

I’m working on a blog entry, too, of my visit to the Baseball Hall of Fame last weekend. It was a good time. Three of us went and spent about four hours inside the Hall. I have a ton of photos to show as well. However, I don’t want to put the blog entry up without linking to the photo gallery!

Finally, tonight is my last day of vacation. It seems like it’s been forever and it somewhat has been. I’m ready as hell to go back to work. I was bored after four or five days and with my Montreal trip getting wacked, it kind of sucked in that regard. But I got a chance to go to Connecticut and a chance to put the mods on the board and such, but I’m ready to get back and get to doing some writing.

More soon!

I’ve always been a fan of colder weather. It’s not that I like to freeze all the time, but I’ve never been a fan of smoldering hot weather. Although this past summer wasn’t that bad.

Actually, summers and heat haven’t been bad since I stopped painting in the summer, but that’s a story for another day if ever.

That said, I have always liked the winter. I like cooler weather, even though I’m not able to play softball in the cold. But, it’s one thing to be cold, it’s another to be snowy, cold, awful conditions.

This weekend, I canned my trip to Montreal because of an expected snow storm coming to our area Friday. I was originally going up Thursday and was going to leave Friday and visit a friend about halfway back. They are yelling for anywhere from four inches to a foot, pending where you are. And it would get worse on the way down from Canada. Real fun.

Instead, I’ll be finishing up this wonderful and boring vacation I’ve had at home. Which isn’t bad, considering the board is in need of having mods put back on it. But, it’s just the fact that I’m getting cooped up when I had some fun plans. What will really piss me off is that Thursday is supposed to be a nice day and I was looking forward to listening to my XM all the way to Canada.

I’ll really be steamed if this damn storm sweeps off to the coast and doesn’t touch the route I was going to travel.

I’ll say this, at least in the summer, you can deal with weather and still travel. In the winter, not so much. Although 10 years ago I probably would have still hopped in the car and went, not thinking twice. Now, I don’t act as gutsy — or stupid, pending how you look at it.

I was really looking forward to seeing some friends in Montreal as well as seeing that city during the holidays. Instead, I’ll be seeing how Delhi looks.

Weather. Damn it all.

I’m sure by now everyone notices the trend of having every sort of gadget on the market and looking cool with them. I won’t lie to say that I have some of these gadgets and all, but man, they are a lot more confusing than I thought they would be. Some of them anyway.

So I figured I’d pop this part of my life in a new blog entry talking about some of these things and how they can help or not in the normal world.

I love some of these things, without a doubt. I but I wonder how much they actually help me in life at times. So I figured a good way to find out if these things have actually helped me or not would be to go one-by-one here and check it out.

Digital camera: A couple of years ago, I purchased a Canon PowerShot S230, one of the digital elph series cameras. At 3.2 mega pixels, it’s perfect because on high res, you can print out an 8X10 photo with no problem. This thing has been awesome. Most of the photos you’ll see from the past 2-3 years in my gallery on this site are by that camera. It has been one of the best investments I’ve ever made. For those of you who have a point-and-shoot camera and still use film… you should look into a digital. It’s killer. GRADE: A.

PDA: This is one of those things I thought I needed to have. Truth be told, since I dropped the coin on this Dell Axim, I haven’t probably used it for as much as it can be used for. I put my calendar in there, contacts, notes and things like that. I don’t look at it every day, however, so that kind of destroys the date book part of it. It is nice to have and be able to use, but I need to start learning more about the Axim and what it can do for me. I have no doubt over time it will totally be beneficial for me, but for now, it doesn’t seem to do the job always. GRADE: C.

Digital recorder: A self-professed old-school writer who likes to still write notes in a notepad, going for one of these didn’t seem like the thing to do. I never liked the tape recorder, which always annoyed me. However, with several people telling me to try it, I went and got one based on Hokie’s suggestion. This thing has been fabulous for the job and digital is the way to go. It’s made my life a lot easier. And I found a way to only pay $17 bucks for it, so bonus. GRADE: A.

Cell phone: In all honesty, I’d be lost without a cell phone. But the one I have is quite the gadget. Has a camera, allows me to text, picture text, Get it Now through Verizon etc. It’s one with the bells and whistles, not just a cell phone. It’s made my life easier and with all the little toys it comes with, sometimes more fun. GRADE: A.

iPod: This thing has been a blessing. I had an MP3 player before, but I didn’t like it that much. Didn’t hold a lot of songs and it was too difficult to put things on it at times. It’s, at times, helped me keep my sanity when working or doing other things. Just being able to pop the ear buds in and get a little tunes going, it makes life better. I’ve heard people say they have had problems with iPods – I’ll say for me, it’s been pretty much perfect since I got it. GRADE: A.

In my life, I’ve also gone and made sure I had certain things that hopefully make me a little more organized. Only one I can really think of that has worked out wonders for me.

Backpack: I got one at EMS when one of their stores was going out of business. So I purchased a pretty sweet $75 backpack for like $18. I carry it every day, keep everything in there that I could possibly need – from pens and notepads, to my recorder, digital camera and PDA. It’s nice to be able to just grab the backpack and roll, knowing I have everything with me. And if I need to stuff a windbreaker or bottle of water in there as well? Not a problem. For those that need to carry things or stay organized well on a daily basis, I’d highly recommend a backpack. GRADE: A.

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Some of these things could have probably bumped down in the B level, and I know a lot of people wouldn’t even give them a C because they would use them less than I. However, it seems most of these gadgets have made my life a little better. Sometimes it takes me a while to make a purchase like these things, but in the end, I’m usually happy with them. Now, if I can figure out more to do with that PDA, I’ll be super stoked!