Happy Not Presidents Day!

I guess that I was so excited to not think about Valentine’s Day that I moved Presidents Day in my mind to today. Reality struck last week when I was doing some planning on my calendar and I realized that Presidents Day is next Monday (get ready to do some mattress purchasing!). Now I have to once again deal with the fact that I’ll be alone on Valentine’s Day — for the eighth year in a row. 🙁

Today’s Daily Challenge
I might have to change this section’s name to “Yesterday’s Daily Challenge” to ensure that I have something for the mornings on which I post early.

I Should Have Spree’d
After work on Friday a small group of us went over to Taco Mac. Taco Mac was packed, it was hard to hear your neighbor speak, and Taco Mac minus the pretty young ladies who no longer work there isn’t quite Taco Mac any longer. I should have gone to Center Stage for The Polyphonic Spree show instead, but there was a part of me that feared that seeing them in Atlanta would devalue the wonderful memory I have of seeing them in Seattle.

ITP Flickr Pic
On Saturday ITP-Reader John and I headed down (in a roundabout way thanks to my inattentive navigation) to the butterfly house at Callaway Gardens (no entrance fee during January and February). It seemed to me that shooting butterflies wouldn’t be that difficult. I was wrong.

This might be the only shot that I’m willing to publish.

On the way back we stopped in Pine Mountain and intended to eat at the Three Lil Pigs BBQ, but encountered Moore’s Whistling Pig Cafe first. I had the rib plate which was phenomenal and filled me for the rest of the day.

Now That’s Theatre!
After Thursday’s theatre bust, spending the day out and about, and knowing how cold and windy it was going to be Saturday night it took all of my muster to get me to go out to see “Red” at Theatrical Outfit on Saturday night. But I already had a ticket (third row, dead center, in a small theatre). I’m so glad that I went.

“Red” is a one set, two-man play about an New York artist in the late 1960’s and his apprentice. The dialog was smart and the play was well-acted, just the sort of thing that stirs my creative fluid. Like “The Fairytale Lives Of Russian Girls” “Red” had no intermission; unlike the former I certainly would have returned to my seat to see the play’s entirety if it had.

Theatrical Outfit is a downtown theatre which doesn’t seem to get the recognition it deserves. Shame on Atlanta. The plays I’ve seen there have been incredible, and one of my regrets from 2011 was not being able to fit seeing “Freud’s Last Session” into my calendar. I was somewhat surprised to see my name in the playbill under the “Donors $1-$99” section as I had forgotten about my charitable contribution. Shame on me, and further shame on Atlanta — a city of millions, for making a $50 donation recognition worthy. And while I think that the $10 parking directly across the street is a bit of highway robbery, its convenience (especially on a brutally cold and windy night) was worth it, and it was a lot cheaper than the parking ticket that Park Atlanta was handing out to some people parked on the street.

If It Was Sunday It Must Have Been Laundry And Work Day
Yesterday I woke fairly early and braved the cold by heading out to the lavanderia. I timed my arrival well as most of the locals had not gotten there yet and I had my choice of washers and driers.

After laundry I came into the office to start knocking out a couple of bugs in my project (not necessarily my code, btw). Expect me to spend a lot of time between now and May as I try to push my project to version 1.0.

Slipper? I Hardly Know Her!
When I was in Raleigh back in December I had a discussion with ITP-Readers Lisa and Randy about house slippers (the footwear). To my knowledge I have never owned a pair of slippers as an adult.

Last week while looking for a toiletries bag, to replace the one I left in Raleigh on my recent visit, I saw that slippers were on clearance at Target. I’ve taken a $9 gamble by purchasing a pair.

I’ve worn the slippers around the ITP Estate (I probably should have gotten a size larger) and am warming to the idea of wearing them in this cold weather. I’m not certain that I’ll become a committed slipper wearer, but I’m here to prove that even old farts like me can be open to new ideas.

One “Book” Down
Having an iPad and a Kindle Fire with me at all times has made it a lot easier to read, though I still don’t do it as much as I should. Over the past week or so I read a short “Kindle Single” book called My Seinfeld Year written by Fred Stoller, who spent one season on Seinfeld as a writer. As a huge Seinfeld fan (at least in the 1990s when the show aired) I found the behind the scene stories entertaining.

Stats & Goals
Daily
Current Mood – fat, cold, incredibly behind schedule
Current Music – listening to a recent “The Candid Frame” podcast before shifting to music for coding
Website Of The Day – Seems as if I’m not the only one with pancakes on the mind in 2012. Yesterday saw this article Five Secrets to Perfect Pancakes on Yahoo!.
Mode Of Transportation To Work – my car
Exercise (b)Log – nothing (damn it was cold this weekend)
Morning Weigh-In – 212 pounds (still way too fat)

Monthly
Foot Mileage – ~12.3 miles
Wheel Mileage – 0.0 miles
Pushups – 0
Situps – 0
Stairs – 6 flights

Days Of Bed-Making – 13^*

Vegetarian Days – 3^*
Carnivorous Days – 9
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]