Cold Beats Walk

The plan this morning was to rise early and go out for a walk this morning prior to work. In an unusual twist ITP-Reader Betsy and I didn’t get together to watch Top Chef, and I wound up falling asleep on the couch around 9:30pm. All of this boded well for my plan.

And then I woke up.

When I arose fifteen minutes prior to the sound of my alarm clock in the bedroom, 4:45am to be exact, there was a distinct chill in the air. I tried in vain to convince myself that my walking plan, in roughly 35º F air, was still a smart idea. I shivered a bit as I strolled into the bedroom to silence the alarm, and at that time I decided that sleep was going to win out this morning.

Today’s Daily Challenge
Do three squats today.
[author’s note: The Daily Challenge reads “Do 3 squats today.” but I can’t bring myself to use numerals where words can be used easily.]

Squats are the perfect stretch and strengthener. They tone your largest muscles and can help increase metabolism. Although squats were once believed to be a no-no for knees, new research has shown that if someone does squats over a long-term period and has good form, the moves actually make these stronger. Trainers now praise squats as an all-in-one exercise.

Can’t Comment?
ITP-Reader Steve has had difficulty leaving comments on the blog. If you are also experiencing difficulties could you please send me an email to itpBlogBox@gmail.com? I can’t guarantee that I can fix whatever is broken (I don’t own the servers on which InsideThePerimeter is hosted) but it would be good to know if it’s my content or technical difficulties reducing the number of comments.

Thanks.

The Mad (As In Crazy) Chef
I returned home from getting my haircut last night with much hunger. Since Betsy and I had not communicated about getting together for Top Chef I decided to start cooking “early” (a little before 7pm). I took the thawed shrimp from the refrigerator, sliced some brussels sprouts in half, started a pot of water to boil for pasta, and fired up a cast iron pan and skillet. All with no real plan in place.

With the cast iron hot enough (or so I thought) I threw the brussels sprouts into the pan with some butter. I slathered the shrimp in vegetable oil, and then proceeded to place some of them onto the skillet. When the water reached near-boil I dropped in some dried fettucini. I continued cooking the pasta, brussels sprouts and shrimp.

I had more thawed shrimp than I expected and those cooking on the skillet were sticking more than I wanted, so I dropped the remaining uncooked shrimp into the pan with the sprouts. With a few minutes remaining in the pasta’s cooking time I added some chopped garlic to the sprouts and shrimps (heh, that sounds like an awesome menu name).

Without wanting to open a new bottle of white wine just to add it to the pan (by this time I was already drinking beer) I added some of the pasta water into the pan with the sprouts, shrimp, and garlic. Once the pasta was drained it too joined the melange in the pan.

In the end the meal was pretty good (and probably should have taken a photo of it for some practice).

I did learn/remember a few things last night:

• If I buy frozen shrimp in the future I need to use them sooner.
• When cooking using cast iron I need to let the cookware get really hot so that food wont stick (it might be a good idea to re-season my cast iron again)
• This recipe has promise, but I think I need to time my cooking, use less oil, and more spices in the future

When dinner was done I fired up the skillet again to try and cook off the stuck shrimp. I created quite the smokey scene, though delightfully smelly like fajitas, and was forced to open the kitchen door to allow the smoke to escape without setting off my smoke detector. I’m lucky that no one mistook this process for being a house fire. 😉

ITP Flickr Pic
Arg.

Perhaps some of the money I donated to APM’s “The Story” should go toward buying more memory or hiring a web developer who knows how to handle this error.

There will be another screenshot in tomorrow’s blog. Perhaps I should start my own Tumblr meme like today’s Website Of The Day.

To The Theatre I Go!
Tonight I’ll be headed down to the Alliance Theatre for the performance of “The Fairytale Lives of Russian Girls”. Ooooh. I honestly have no idea about the play’s plot. I bought season subscription to the Alliance last year and my ticket happens to be for tonight.

I’ll give my unofficial critique of the play tomorrow.

Stats & Goals
Daily
Current Mood – frustrated
Current Music – listening to yesterday’s “The Story” podcast
Website Of The Day – Transitioning from “normal” web surfing to “mobile” web surfing has proved to be difficult for designers. WTF Mobile Web is here to show people’s poor attempts at providing a “better” experience.
Mode Of Transportation To Work – my car
Exercise (b)Log – walking, nothing much though
Morning Weigh-In – Sonnabitch! I complete forgot again!

Monthly
Foot Mileage – ~8.9 miles
Wheel Mileage – 0.0 miles
Pushups – 0
Situps – 0
Stairs – 6 flights

Days Of Bed-Making – 9^*

Vegetarian Days – 3^*
Carnivorous Days – 5
Pancakes Eaten – 2

Marta Rides To Work – 0
Bike Rides To Work – 0

February Goals
– Lose at least one pound (net weight loss)
– Exercise for thirty minutes no fewer than twenty days
– Not to get sick for the entire month
– Eat vegetarian no fewer than ten days
– Not get fired from my job, nor quit my job
– Follow up with doctors, lawyer, women in whom I have interest
– Go out on a least one date with a woman in whom I have interest
– Submit 2012 paperwork for Sharpened Stone, LLC
– Gather all tax paperwork for 2011 income taxes
– Successfully arrange for automatic payments for my mortgage
– Watch all of the classes in the 2011 Winter semester of Stanford’s CS193P (iOS Development) course

2012 Goals [will be a little less fluid than last year]
– Get my weight under 200 pounds, or at least whittle myself back down to where wearing a 36″ pant size is comfortable
– Completely read ten books, audio books permissible
– Run Sharpened Stone as a real business
– Save $500 for the sole purpose of donating to charitable organizations of my choice
– Attend at least one professional photography workshop
– Ride in no fewer than five 50 mile or 50K bike rides
– Run in no fewer than one one 10K
– Submit at least one application under the name “Sharpened Stone” to Apple’s iOS store
– Restore the ITP Estate to a condition where it can be put up for sale at any time
– Buy a new iPhone (iPhone 5?), a new iPad (iPad 3?), and MacBook Air [look, not all goals have to be altruistic]

The Unmeasurable
– Continue backing up all data, including the off-site storage
– Become a proficient and profitable programmer in Objective-C
– Do not create a solution for something which is not a problem
– Eat smaller portions
– Start, and continue, to make my own bread using my bread machine as well as using the technique outlined in Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day: The Discovery That Revolutionizes Home Baking
– Read and discard magazines during the month in which they arrive (even digitally)
– See more live concerts than I did in 2011
– Eat more pancakes
– Drive/Fly somewhere for a real vacation

Cheers,
Paulie [eatl/ga]