Wide Awake In America
My brother and nephew, heretofore known as ITP-Readers Ronnie (though the rest of the world calls him Bill) and Eric arrived safely last night. Some food was consumed and a bottle of wine was opened, and I went to sleep on my couch (I’m a good host, giving up my bedroom) at midnight and still managed to wake up without an alarm at 6am.
I made one tactical error, which I will blame on the lack of company that I’ve had here at the ITP estate — I failed to get the clothes I plan to wear from my bedroom so now instead of showering I am writing today’s blog.
Rookie mistake.
Baby It’s Cool Inside
Wow, it’s 63º F in my house because someone doesn’t understand the technology behind the fancy-pants thermostat he installed last year.
Having company over I wanted to provide them with a fairly comfortable environment — cheap Mr Scrooge lets the temperature plummet, like Apple stocks when Steve Jobs announces a medical leave, when he is home alone — so I told the thermostat to “HOLD” the temperature I set. Apparently that was not a permanent “HOLD” as it went back to its chilly programming sometime last night.
Ronnie and Eric are staying in Atlanta again tonight, perhaps I’ll be able to figure it out tonight. Yeesh.
Another Rookie mistake.
ITP Flickr Pic
No male-dominated family portrait today, perhaps tomorrow. Instead I’ll thrust a photographic self-portrait attempt (read “partial failure”) upon you.
I’ll partially blame to optics of the cheap mirror, and accept part of the blame for trying to take a photo using my iPhone while holding it in my left hand.
Speaking of AAPL
More nervous today than I’ve been in some time as I await to see how Apple’s stock opens this morning. I have a sell order in for a portion of my holdings (shit, I’m not going down with the ship completely) and will weather the apparent storm with the rest of my holdings unless things look really bad.
Time To Jump The City’s Ass
When I decided to let Sharpened Stone live another day I also decided that I was not going to incur another unbelievably high $500 penalty for my lack of business license. That’s good business, right?
According to the City’s website I am to have received a renewal notice by January 15th. I did not and I don’t care that the City was mostly shut down last week or that yesterday they were closed in observance of MLK Day. I want my renewal and I want it now, dammit!
Stats & Goals
Daily
Current Mood – embarrassed at my lack of preparation
Current Music – silence
Website Of The Day – Recently I was introduced to a site which highlights IKEA furniture makeovers called MyKea.
Mode Of Transportation To Work – my car, eventually
Exercise (b)Log – nothing
Morning Weigh-In – Feb 1
Monthly
Foot Mileage – ~16.3 miles
Wheel Mileage – 0 miles
Pushups – 0
Situps – 0
Stairs – 6 flights
Consecutive Days Of Bed-Making (Longest Streak) – 4 (9)
Vegetarian Days – 0
Carnivorous Days – 17
Marta Rides To Work – 0
Bike Rides To Work – 0
January Goals
– Not to get sick for the entire month
– Not get fired from my job
– Run no fewer than 75 miles
– Prepare Sharpened Stone, LLC for 2011 so that I get no more penalties
– Lose two pounds
– Eat vegetarian at least one day a week
– A couple of goals which I will not divulge
– Eat lunch out no more than twice a week
– Limit myself to eating dinner out on laundry nights, meeting nights, and dates
2011 Goals [will be a little more fluid than in past years]
– Reduce my weight by 25 pounds based on the my weight as measured on February 1st
– Completely read the book Daily Negations which I received as a Christmas gift.
– Run Sharpened Stone as a real business — one which does not get penalized.
– Save $500 for the sole purpose of donating to charitable organizations of my choice
– Attend at least one professional photography workshop
– Enter no fewer than three photographic competitions / gallery showings
– Ride in no fewer than five 50 mile or 50K bike rides
– Run in no fewer than two half-marathons
– Submit at least one application under the name “Sharpened Stone” to Apple’s iOS store
The Unmeasurable
– Continue backing up all data, including the off-site storage
– Become a proficient programmer in Objective-C
– Do not create a solution for something which is not a problem
– Eat smaller portions
Cheers,
Paulie [eatl/ga]
I gotta ask – why the alias Ronnie?
We got a new thermostat too – I’ve yet to master it as well. I guess I ought to get otuthe instructions, but that seems too easy.
It is people like you that make the stock prices fall – I find it funny that your love of apple is so dependent on Steve Jobs. Now, I know he is a great force behind the company, but still…….. he will come back, prices will go back up & you will wish you hadn’t sold.
Maybe now is the time to buy? How many times have we heard, you wish you had bought when prices were low??
I’ve given up on the thermostat…it doesn’t seem to matter what it says, one day 64 is very comfortable, the next its freezing…it just can’t be right.
Barb, my dad’s name was Carl, the family called him Randy (his middle name was Randolph)..why? I don’t know. Anyone that met him after high school called him Carl or Slugo (mostly Navy buddies). My Uncle Mike, his first name is Timothy?? Again…I don’t know why my family does that but they do.
I’m starting to fall behind on my 52 New Dishes or 2011. With Jerry gone, I don’t go through very much food. Since I’m on Day 4 of Gluten Free, I figured I would try some baking. I made Gluten Free pumpkin bars…they are okay…I skipped making the brown sugar icing. The big problem with GF baking is the flour is so damn expensive…about $4 a pound??? Mistakes and failures will be very costly.
Ronnie is my brother’s middle name. Bill sounded too close to my dad’s name so when growing up I called him Ronnie.
My love for Apple is for its products and stock price. Steve Job is seen by many as “the company” since he was the CEO responsible for bringing Apple back, hence the concern. fwiw – I’m not doing a complete selloff and even if I were I’m making enough profit to repurchase if the price plummets to where I bought in the first time. “Buy low. Sell high”, right? Besides, this is “plumbing fixing money.” 😉
$4 / pound? I guess there will be no “Gluten Free” hash any time soon.
I’m John Steven, according to the Feds, but go by Steve because dad was John. And no, I’m not a “Jr”.
Going by your middle name is an unintended curse, which most computer systems don’t appreciate. In most forms, my first name is J Steven and no middle initial is given.
My thermostat will HOLD until the cows come home. If you just change the temp, that will stay until the next time interval programmed. Why yours doesn’t act that way is odd.
-FP
I thought maybe Ronnie was a name you just made up for him, not his middle name. (like, some sort of inside joke). My dad goes by his middle name (Arlen), not his first name William, and that is closer to his dad’s name (Arlee), so that really makes no sense. I am a firm believer that you should name your kid the name you want to call them as their first name – I just don’t get it doing it the other way around.
Gluten free – I think that would take too much thought for me.
I’d say gluten free pumpkin bars would fall into the new dish category.
I went to Eclipse di Luna at the end of Miami Circle (Buckhead) last night with a friend, if you want to eat too much tapas, go there on Monday night. It is $15 all you can eat. We really didn’t over eat, but we got our moneys worth & definitely could have. But – important note, the place is really loud, sit on the patio if you want to have a conversation.
I’m giving the Gluten Free a try, I’ve been having some issues and I want to see if gluten is the problem, at this point I’m going to say no, it is something else but I’m going to finish out the week. I may even lose a little weight, not be ‘GF’ is better but I have to think more about everything I eat, much of my ‘goto’ mindless eating snack food has gluten, cereal, crackers, etc…now that I have to think about, I end up just skipping the snack all together.
The cost gets worse if you try to bake paleo, using almond flour, that stuff is $10 /pound.
I forgot about Jerry. His first name is Anthony…most of his stuff is A Jerry. I guess he also has another middle name, all three boys have it, it is their mother’s maiden name (I guess it is a Filipino thing).
I used to manually create email addresses as a part of an on-boarding process at work. Some people get REALLY cranky when their legal name was used instead of nick-name. I never understood why they would get so angry. I find it funny, and to be more of an ass I would always call them by their legal name 🙂
I am Paul John, and as of last night I understand why I inherited the family name instead of my brother. Seems as if my uncle Paul was going to be left to name his son Paul, but since he never had a child I was blessed with the family name. Not that I mind, mind you.
oooh, and we shall call him Robert henceforth…