Late Again

And this time I can’t blame an early-morning walk. Today I’ll pick up a couple of the topics I mentioned yesterday. Tomorrow I’ll catch the rest.

Yesterday’s Daily Challenge
Share your favorite healthy beverage.

Staying hydrated is key! Every system in our bodies needs water, and without enough of it, we can feel sluggish or headachey. Unfortunately, it’s all too easy to hydrate ourselves with drinks that are high in sugar and calories. By sharing a healthy drink, it may motivate you to think of other good-for-you drinks to guzzle – and you may get some good ideas from others!

Beer is healthy, right? 😉

The Problem With The Powder
I got into work very early yesterday so that I could start my crockpot of “jambalaya” (you’d be thrown into the Mississippi of you served that concoction to a Cajun) and go out for a pre-work walk.

I launched the MapMyRide app on the iPhone and started my trek. After what seemed to be an eternity I returned to the office and was bummed to see that I had only covered ~3.6 miles. Dejected I headed into the locker room and showered, using shampoo as my soap since there was no soap in the shower’s dispenser.

This post-workout cleanup was my first since accidentally leaving my toiletry bag in Raleigh, so all of the products in the new toiletry bag were recent purchases and perhaps unproven. One such item was Gold Bond Medicated Body Powder.

I’ve heard of Gold Bond for years, but have never used it as I’m a mostly-committed Johnson & Johnson Baby Powder man — when the situation calls for talc. After toweling down I opened the new travel-size container and strategically applied a small handful to, shall we say, private areas.

Did you know the “Medicated” portion of Gold Bond includes menthol? I sure as shit didn’t! My privies started to light up with “medicated goodness,” not to a “Ben Gay level” but far beyond anything Johnson & Johnson Baby Powder has ever done. Wow. It got so uncomfortable that I nearly jumped back into the shower, but then I remembered that there was no soap so that would be a fruitless effort to improve the situation occurring in my Fruit of the Looms.

Needless to say, I’m once again a mostly-committed Johnson & Johnson Baby Powder man.

That may have been extreme TMI, but as Paul Harvey used so say…. “And now you know the rest of the story.”

Oh and I found out that I actually walked about 4.25 miles

Turns out that when I used my iPhone to send a text message I interrupted the MapMyRide app, thus short-changing my time and distance recording. I realized this when I went to resume the podcast to which I was listening. When I started the audio playback at the time recorded by MapMyRide I quickly realized that I had already heard that portion. So I mapped out my walk using GMap Pedometer to calculate a more-accurate distance.

Pants v. Shoes
For a straight male I own a lot of shoes. When I went into K&G Menswear the other night the sole purpose of my trip was to buy a pair of Dockers, specifically olive-colored Dockers. Guess what, olive seems to be a non-existent color these days.

As I perused the racks I found that K&G was having a “Buy 1, Get 2 Free” deal (probably something they do all the time), so I picked out three slightly-different pairs of slacks, 38″x30″ for my currently too-fat body, and marched over to fitting rooms.

Had there been a loaded gun or object sharper than the pins on the floor I probably would have used it to end my time as I am once again too large for a 38″ waistband (for Dockers at least, for the jeans I wear still say ’38″x30″‘). Ugh. No pants for me!

Back to shoes. Since reaching adulthood my feet have rarely changed size. I wear either a 9M D or 9.5M D shoe, depending on the manufacturer. Don’t laugh, I bet that’s about average, which is all I have to say about that… Because my shoe size rarely changes I feel comfortable buying shoes knowing that they’ll last a long time (longer than they’ll ever be fashionable). On Monday night I cruised up and down the aisles and actually found a pair of Steve Madden loafers that I thought were comfortable and semi-stylish, for “only” $50. Just as I was about to box up the shoes to purchase them I noticed that the stitching had already started to come apart. There was one other 9.5M D on the shelf, but all confidence I had in the shoe’s construction had been diminished.

So I left K&G Menswear.
No pants.
No shoes.
No nothing.

ITP Flickr Pic
One final post from Monday night’s shoot.

Not nearly as impressive as yesterday’s, but not too shabby either.

RealiTV Update: Top Chef: Texas — There Goes My Pick
Last night ITP-Reader Betsy brought over some wonderful Indian [insert tasteless joke here] food — lentils, cauliflower, peas — and a bottle of Cava. I brainfarted in Kroger (I have my reasons) and managed only to supply some red wine for the evening, which we consumed with Twizzlers.

Remind me again why I can’t fit into the pants in which I want to fit?

Anyway, the night was good up until the point where SPOILER Padma asked Lindsey to pack her knives and go. I’ve been a big fan of Lindsey’s from the get-go and was hoping that she would win it all. Oh well, I guess that I’ll now have to root for my namesake, who really should consider going by “Paulie” instead of just “Paul.” 🙂

Tomorrow I’ll Explain Joshua And Audrey, And Even Throw in Dean
Come back then, won’t you?

Stats & Goals
Daily
Current Mood – okay, tired, scared
Current Music – silence, trying to knock this out quickly so that I can start working
Website Of The Day – Yesterday I received an email from a musician called “DeKoven Street”, pointing me to a Band Camp page to listen to his music. I’ve heard about Band Camp in passing and coincidentally landed there again last night as I searched for an update on a band I discovered a couple of years ago. Oh, I liked what I heard from “DeKoven Street” and am considering buying the EP.
Mode Of Transportation To Work – my car
Exercise (b)Log – nothing
Morning Weigh-In –

Monthly
Foot Mileage – ~32.1 miles
Wheel Mileage – 0.0 miles
Pushups – 0
Situps – 0
Stairs – 31 flights

Days Of Bed-Making – 21^*

Vegetarian Days – 6^*
Carnivorous Days – 16
Pancakes Eaten – 5

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]