Now With 100% More Title!

And 100% more useless intro!

(I forgot both of these with the today’s first publishing).

Yesterday’s Daily Challenge
Pick a theme song to provide the soundtrack for your day.

Anything that helps you feel more in control is bound to help as you make your way through the day. It’s easier to face the challenges of a tough boss or huge load of laundry when James Brown’s got your back! And if you sing your theme song, it can even help to improve your mood, because singing releases feel-good hormones called endorphins.

Perhaps I should have picked a James Brown song instead of Radiohead’s “Just (Do It To Yourself).” Lesson learned.

Lavenderia y Mexican
I did laundry last night because it was the only non-committed night I have until Sunday.

While at the lavanderia I started to re-listen to Going Solo: The Extraordinary Rise and Surprising Appeal of Living Alone because I realized that I had no retention of the four hours’ worth that I listened to on my drive to Black Mountain last Friday. Bummer. I probably listened to ninety minutes’ worth last night and recalled just how statistics-dense the book is, which is probably one reason I didn’t absorb much of the content.

Following my task I decided that I wanted a sit-down Mexican meal which included complementary chips and salsa (like I don’t get enough of this with the many times I go to Chuy’s…). Being that I did laundry on Buford Highway I figured that I should be able to satisfy my desire.

I wound up at El Potro, a Mexican restaurant on Buford Highway that I’ve been to on a handful of occasions. El Potro is located near the corner of Buford Highway and whatever that access road is that takes you from Buford Highway to REI (Briarwood? I’m going from memory here folks). I had a burrito and enchilada combo plate for dinner and sucked down a Coke and a half with my meal. It’s not exactly what the doctor ordered, but it did the trick for me.

Had I been able to complete my laundry and meal sooner I would have popped into REI and sought out a raincoat with the 20% off coupon sent to me in the mail this past weekend, and the whopping $10 dividend that I have currently.

ITP Flickr Pic
I actually did take a photo this past weekend. I had just forgotten that I had.

This was the monitor which greeted me as I entered the Georgia Vistors’ Information Center on I-85 South on Sunday. Seeing a BIOS screen made me shudder as I recalled the pain of my Windows days.

Spend It Like I Have It
Big Spender Paulie dropped $3.98 in the Apple App Store yesterday. Where my gold diggers at?!?!

$2.99 of that total went to buying 5by5 Radio because I want to support 5by5 since I listen to so many of their podcasts for free.

The other $0.99 when to buying Where’s My Water? so that I’ll know how to play the game the next time I’m around Team Raleigh’s oldest (and so I can school him!).

The latter game has once again convinced me that Apple has too many services which require logins. The iTunes Store, iCloud (which potentially required a different login than MobileMe), Find My iPhone/iPad/Mac, and now GameCenter. I bet there is an easy way to tie these all to the same login — unless you are an old-school iTunes user like me whose iTunes Store ID is not an email address and fears that conversion to an email-address-based account will forfeit all previous purchases. So with each new service I create a new account, and in the case of GameCenter I think I have accidentally created two new accounts. Dangen!

I’m Calling Shenanigans On RoundUp
Last Thursday I sprayed an entire jumbo-sized bottle of RoundUp on the ivy around my house. “See results in just 24 hours!” it said on the bottle. It’s now four days later and I’m seeing results — the shit isn’t killing anything; that’s the result I am seeing. I think that I wasted $17 and an hour of my life attempting to kill the ivy growing around the house by spraying weed “killer.” On Sunday I will have to suit-up head-to-toe and go out with the pruning shears to see what I can do about killing the ivy which climbs the trees “the manual way.”

Take Me Out To The Ball Game
I should be going to the monthly meet up of the Atlanta iOS Developers tonight, but instead I’m supposed to be going to tonight’s Reds v. Braves game with coworkers. I’m hoping that the 30% chance of rain that has been forecast is incorrect.

Stats & Goals
Daily
Current Mood – meh. I’m trying to forget about a new pain in hopes that it’s just a passing ship in the night. We’ll see…
Current Music – silence because I’m not in the mood to have anything being pumped into my ears at the moment.
Website Of The Day – I’ve loved Aida Mollenkamp since I first saw her on Food Network’s “Ask Aida.” Now I love reading her food blog.
Mode Of Transportation To Work – my car
Exercise (b)Log – nothing
Morning Weigh-In – don’t know

Monthly
Foot Mileage – 10.5 miles
Wheel Mileage – 0.0 miles
Pushups – 0
Situps – 0
Stairs – 0 flights

Days Of Bed-Making – 0

Vegetarian Days – 3
Carnivorous Days – 11
Pancakes Eaten – 0

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

Books I’ve Read/Heard In 2012

1. Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me — Mindy Kahling
2. Flotsametrics and the Floating World: How One Man’s Obsession with Runaway Sneakers and Rubber Ducks Revolutionized Ocean Science — Curtis Ebbesmeyer
3. God, No! — Penn Jillette
4. The Elephant to Hollywood — Michael Caine
5. Here Comes Trouble — Michael Moore

May Goals
– Lose at least two pounds (net weight loss)
– Completely recover from my sebaceous cyst surgery
– Exercise for thirty minutes no fewer than twenty days
– Not to get sick for the entire month (may be a moot point as of today)
– Eat vegetarian no fewer than ten days
– 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]