Starving

Ugh...hungry. Sticking with 1800 calories the last couple days. Went a bit over on day 2, but anything less than even 2000 is good for me. I bet I ate close to 3000 calories a day over the past year. Got some great exercise over the summer but ZERO since probably October aside from a few hikes.

I lost almost 30lbs a couple years ago. Was within 5 lbs of my target weight (177lbs) somewhere around May. Hit my target in the weeks after my dad died. I barely ate the week of his funeral, but that wasn't good for me either.

Couple things that will help me out...brown bagging it to work, laying off the cheese and chips when I eat at Subway, drinking only water, and choosing fruits or veggies for snacks. I'll be eating pickles like a mad man.

My Fitness Pal

Christmas break/45th birthday

Nothing too exciting to report. Ate/drank too much of course. Back to counting calories today.

Had my annual Nightmare Before Christmas poker tourney. $40 tourney, no cash game. We only had 8 people due to some nasty weather. Data and big Keith went heads-up, Keith won. Had intentions of hitting the casino for at least 1 session, but never made it.

Went to see Quire Cleveland do 600-700 year old Christmas carols, which is always pretty cool. TK and Crina joined us. Met up with Mr Coleman afterward. Always a pleasure.

Saw The Hobbit again with my mom this time. Better the 2nd time. Saw Django Unchained on the 27th. GREAT freaking movie. Best movie all year, although Moonrise Kingdom was close.

Got some cool gifts for Christmas...clothes, Brita water filter for the fridge, sweet new Swiss Gear backpack,  some cash, books, etc. I would have been happy with just a nice dinner with family/friends.I bought 8 tix to see Brian Regan on 1/20/2013 in Youngstown, so that should be cool.

Caprice had a small get-together for me on the 28th for my birthday. Had about a dozen people over. Good times.

Spent NYE with some friends at a small party. Ate beef tenderloin, shrimp, and some other great stuff. Turned 45 at midnight. Didn't dread this b-day nearly as much as 40.

Watched the first 2 seasons of The Walking Dead. Pretty decent show, although they do so many stupid things it drives me nuts. It's the zombie apocalypse, and most of the characters are walking around unarmed. They sleep in tents when there are probably tons of working RV's nearby. There should be plenty of food, guns/ammo, medicine, etc, yet they act like there is nothing left. They often needlessly risk the safety of the entire group for dumb reasons.

Browns lost to PIT in their last game, but the Stillers didn't make the playoffs either, so the CLE win against them last month really helped knock them out. Who knows what's next for the Browns after the coach and GM got canned. I'd like to see Saban come back to town, but it ain't gonna happen.I also found out that 2 guys I know may be giving up their season tix. I may take 1 of them. Same seats we always have. I'll get 8 home games but will trade around so I get 4 pairs.

New Year's resolutions

• Lose 25-30 lbs by June
• Exercise more!! I really don't exercise much in the winter. I still get killer sinus headaches if I do anything strenuous when temps drop below 45 degrees. I definitely want to get some hikes in with the meetup group.
• Put some more $$ in the bank while also reducing my debt. I managed to save some money over the past year, even more than I had planned to. I also want to stash some cash for our trip to CA either this spring or summer. I'd like to fly in to SoCAL then drive up the coast to Portland or Seattle along the Pacific Coast Highway. Want to make stops in wine country and SF, and see some comedy at the Ice House in Pasadena. Lots of big name comics test out new material there. Supposed to be a great room.
• Brown-bag it at work more. I eat out almost every day at work. I think I spend about $140/month on lunch. 
• Reduce my cable bill. Might get a Roku box after checking out TK's. 
• Learn to play PLO. I keep hearing how juicy the PLO games are at the Horseshoe. I know the game, but need to read a book on it and really LEARN what the hell I'm doing.  I'll also sit down at the $2-5 NL game more often. Over the years I've done very well at $2-5 at casinos. 
• Volunteer. I never did do anything this Christmas, but I really want to do something meaningful. 

So, I'll be going to bed hungry for a while. Gotta immerse myself in healthy foods too. I also still want to do a 3-day juice fast or something similar. Last time I tried, 1100 calories/day was easier than 1800/day. I also went nearly 100% vegan for almost 3 weeks, but that wasn't easy. I think an 80% veggie-20% meat ratio is decent. Either way, I have to give it a try.

Hobbit

The Hobbit was good. I had low expectations after seeing many of the previews, but I liked it. A little long, yes, but they are gonna squeeze every last dime out of the franchise.

Had lunch at  Rincon Criollo on Saturday. Authentic. Heartburn. Can't wait to go back. Checked out a few local shops. That neighborhood has really made a nice comeback.

Pic of me below from last week's Plain Dealer. Someone at work pointed it out. Surprised me, because I was walking through the board of ed. office when someone said "hey I saw you in the paper the other day". "Me?" "huh?". Had no idea, especially since I haven't been to the casino in almost 2 months. So she goes and finds the article (I've since become a celeb over there lol) and yup, there I am, only that pic was from around the time the place opened back in May. I remember them making an announcement that if you didn't want to be photographed, you might want to take a break. No one really left. So anyway, they must have went to their stock pics and pulled this one out.

Browns lose. Steelers also lose, so that's cool too. Weeden looked awful yesterday.

Another tragic school shooting on Friday. Nearly as awful were the news crews shoving microphones into the faces of 6 year olds as they exited the school where their friends were massacred. Then come the calls for gun bans. As if the first AWB actually took any guns off the street or prevented shooting sprees. Meanwhile, someone in China stabbed 20 kids at a school. I'll be first in line to hand over my guns if I can be guaranteed that I will not be the victim of violence for the rest of my life.

Upcoming weekend

First off, another great week at work! Our wireless network is nearly installed at the HS, which will be very cool once it's up and running. We'll be rolling it out to staff and students after winter break.

The Hobbit tonight! Heading to a 10:30 show (2-D. Screw 3-D) with some friends, hoping it's good. Looking at the previews, it seems there is much more CGI this time around. The scenes didn't seem quite as majestic as LOTR, and other scenes looked a bit too much like the original LOTR. I really think Guillermo Del Toro would have added some great nuances to the darker, scarier stuff of the movie. Would have had a more psychedelic feel to it for sure. Looks a bit vanilla from what I've seen in the previews. Oh well, there's no way that I'm NOT seeing it on the big screen. Several times, likely. Here's a review.

Saturday, a wee bit of Christmas shopping and some errands, then the day is free. 

Sunday...FOOTBALL!! Hoping for 4 in a row from the Browns.

Go Browns!

The Browns are only 5-8 right now, but have improved immensely this year. As long as the new management doesn't completely dismantle the team during the off season, "next year" could be an exciting one. We're on a 3-game win streak and if RG3 doesn't play next week, we can beat the Redskins. I went down to the game with Ray yesterday. Got a little wet in the 4th qtr but wasn't bad overall. Some snow would have been cool. LOVE the snow games, as much as I hate snow.

We started at the Tilted Kilt where I got an AWFUL breakfast. Of course the place isn't known for its food, but wow, this was bad. The order took a while, and my over medium eggs were really runny, the home fries were greasy, and the toast was saturated with butter. The only good things were the sausage and bacon, which were decent but not fresh-cooked. Oh well.

So, first play of the game, KC runs 80 yds for a TD. Everyone was thinking "great, it's gonna be one of THOSE days", but it wasn't to be. Those were the only points KC scored. We stopped Hillis cold all day and sacked Brady Quinn 5-6 times. Nice. Of course, the only 2 Browns jerseys I own are Hillis and Quinn.

Travis Benjamin had a 93 yard punt return for a TD, and Cribbs almost got another. The receivers actually held onto to ball. Weeden tried to toss a couple of picks, but they were dropped.

The new phone's here! The new phone's here!

Played at H2's last week. Stayed too long. Played fine and was up almost $400. Didn't listen to my little man. Got AA cracked, made a couple bad calls, chased a couple draws that whiffed. Lost $75 on the night.

Got the new phone. It's BAD ASS! Only issue is slow 3G speeds and the 4G LTE network in the CLE area is gonna be a while. Hmmm...what to do. I know one thing, this thing blows the iPhone away. It does some really slick stuff. Oh, and I got it for $48 ($148 but I got a $100 gift card from Wal Mart) Got my mom a Google Nexus 7 with that. 32GB model for $249.

Weather has been decent again. 50's and 60's lately. I'll take it all winter long.

Saw Killing Them Softly over the weekend. I really liked it. Brutal scene with Ray Liotta. Interesting, great dialogue, and had a very cool look and feel, but the end was rather abrupt. Kinda like this blog post.

OMG am I tired today.

Just got an email from Amazon with this deal. This is the laptop I got for $250 a few weeks ago.

Couldn't sleep last night. Tossed and turned. Need a nap.

Happy Thanksgiving! Go Browns!

I definitely have a few things to be thankful for. I'm not gonna write the list down here, but I am very fortunate. It's a long list and I don't have all night. I've really been feeling lately that I need to "give back" somehow. With Christmas being so consumerist, it drives me nuts to see so many people attached to "stuff". The holidays are not about spending your ass off. I want to volunteer at a soup kitchen or something starting sometime soon and then doing it on a regular basis. It's something that's been sort of pressing on me for a while now, like I need to do it as soon as possible.

Dinner with mom, John, and Julie on Thursday. J/J almost certainly would not have joined everyone at Caprice's mom's place for the huge feast, so it was just the 4 of us at my place. I cooked prime rib. Turned out great but the gravy was missing something. MUCH easier than cooking turkey, although I have no plans to do it every year. I like turkey, and my turkey gravy blows away my beef gravy.

Buckeyes beat Michigan and THE BROWNS BEAT THE STEELERS!!!! Christmas comes early this year. OSU win was no surprise, and I knew CLE had a chance with the rapist on the bench, but I don't think anyone really thought they would win. Even with the Stillers pinned back at their own 4 yard line and 20 seconds left, I expected disaster. Still 1 game to play against them, it would be amazing to sweep them for the season.

Speaking of Christmas, I have changed my mind on the phone I'm getting in December. Caprice got the Samsung GS3, and damn is it nice. Beautiful screen, great camera. Doesn't feel nearly as big as it looks. The entire front is all glass that rounds off at the edges, making it silky smooth. I also like the Android interface so much more than iOS. It's MUCH more stylish and pleasing to the eye. iOS has barely changed in 6 years. The newer Android 4.x OS seems quite a bit more stable than the 2.3 version I'm running on the Evo. I'll still give the iPhone a better grade for physical style and software stability, although Android has made huge strides with 4.x. I'm just hooked on that screen. Oh, and it's gonna cost at least $200 less for the phone and around $500 less in accessories and software over the life of the phone. Actually, the only iPhone software I really miss is the CycleMeter app, which was pretty cool.

Finished the book Proof of Heaven last week. Very interesting. Then, in an additional synchronistic event, I turned on the TV last week and there was the author, telling his story. He has a website and also does presentations. I'll have to check him out if he comes around.

So...what else happened over the last week...I was off work, which was nice. Got the Jeep cleaned, waxed, and detailed. Got some work done on my home PC that I'd been waiting to do. Mostly backups.

Rescued my crazy cousin from a biker bar on Friday night. I had stopped by to bring him some Thanksgiving leftovers, and called his phone when I got there, but when he answered he was already at the Trading Post. He was with a neighbor (young kid) and they were staying until the bar closed. It was 7:30 and he was pretty hammered already, so I went to get him out of there.  Glad I did, because there was no way he was gonna make it 7 more hours. He was stumbling into bikers' girlfriends and getting some serious stink eye. Worst of all were the prospects for the biker group (I didn't actually even get their name). The prospects are ready to throw down for the group at any minute, and those guys were pretty scary. I think they've seen a few too many Sons of Anarchy episodes.

I'm also getting ready to try a 3-day juice cleanse/detox. Doesn't sound too bad, and 3 days isn't a big deal.

World War Z

I had this as a book on tape from Audible. I liked it but don't recall much of it. Which is why I no longer get books on tape. I don't have much hope that the movie will be any good but I'm gonna have to see it.

Today is my mom's birthday. Took her out to Bubba's Q in Avon. Decent food. Service and atmosphere were a 2 out of 5.

November Update!

Halloween Party
Went to a Halloween party and had a great time. Got my pimp on. 

Recent Movies:
Flight - 3.8 out of 5 stars
Cloud Atlas - 4 out of 5 stars
The Perks of Being a Wallflower - 3.8 out of 5 stars
The Hobbit makes its big screen debut on12/14!

Books
Play Something Dancy
Dee Simon of the Sick and Wrong Podcast writes this expose' on his 5 years as a strip club DJ. He's got some hilarious stories, I highly recommend it, and check out the podcast too, it's always worth a laugh

Proof of Heaven
From one extreme to the other. This book is a non-fiction work by a retired neurosurgeon that contracted a rare form of e. coli meningitis and was in a coma for a week with zero brain activity. While in the coma he visited what could be referred to as heaven and met the higher power we refer to as God. I'm about 2/3 done so far and it's very interesting. I've been trying to wrap my head around my own mortality since my dad passed away 2 years ago, and I have to say that this book is encouraging for agnostics or people with no faith.


Cavs game
Eskimo hooked up me and Slacks with some free Cavs tix. Bad seats but we had a decent time. Tilted Kilt for grub and brews before the game. 

Hurricane
Had 4 days off work due to the "superstorm" that rolled through. It was pretty crazy, there were trees down everywhere.

Poker
Won my session before the Cavs game, and lost after the game. Ended up down a buy-in after winning $160 earlier.  Haven't played since.


Black Pig
Me and Caprice stopped in to check out the place on Friday. Very stylish looking place and the food was killer. I had roasted duck breast...mmmmmmm! We got free drinks and dessert since the owners' kid goes to the place Caprice works, so that was cool too. My only complaint was the classic rock in the background. Just didn't seem to fit.

Election
My Constitution Party candidate sadly did not win. I did get to see Karl Rove get skewered by Fox News. That was a beautiful thing.

Technology
The school levy at work passed, so we will be getting a $500k wireless network installed. They have already started at one building. Pretty exciting.

Also exciting is the like-new Asus laptop I scored on Craigslist. Core i5 CPU, 6GB RAM, 750GB hard drive. I pulled the SSD drive from my Dell and put it in the Asus. This thing screams, I really like it and it looks kick-ass. Gonna sell my Dell Core i3 to TK for $250, which is what I paid for the Asus. The Dell is going for $350+ on eBay right now, and the Asus around $500. Basically I'll get a free upgrade, so that works for me and TK gets a nice laptop at a great price. The Dell is probably the best laptop I've owned.

I'm gonna go check out the new Microsoft Surface tablets sometime soon. Might have work trade in my iPad for it if possible. With a full copy of Win8 on the Surface, I can use it for a lot more work functions.

This past week
Did a hike with the NEO Hiking Meetup the last couple weekends. Got a little lost with week but got some great exercise out of it.


Upcoming
I'm off the week of Thanksgiving! Black Friday road trip is at the CLE Horseshoe Casino this year. Kinda cool, no 2-hour drive in blinding snow. That one year was pretty crazy where we almost went off the road down a monster embankment.

I am also having my annual Nightmare Before Christmas tourney. $40 donkament and low stakes cash game. Should be fun.

Taking my mom out to dinner tonight for her birthday (tomorrow). Heading to Bubba's Q. Never been there, I hear it's good.

That's about it for now. Oh, almost forgot...the weather SUCKS!

Comments and gripes

Bit of a blah week despite some decent weather. Managed to do a bike ride last night around the 'hood. The ghetto/industrial bike ride is always fun. Went almost 8 miles, nothing fancy.

I'm getting into that change of seasons funk I get into every year

Saw a great movie over the weekend...Argo. All the conspiracy theorists say it's out now because they are trying to re-villify Iran so we can go to war with them. I don't doubt we'll get involved over there, but I really don't think Ben Affleck is a government shill. Either way, a war with Iran is going to be about 1 thing, as always...oil.

Ate at Pine Garden in Lorain for what I am hoping will be my last time on Sunday. For some reason, Caprice's mom and grandma seem to love that place. I admit their food used to be pretty good, but not lately. The place is NASTY to begin with. I'm not gonna do a full review but my food sucked and the restaurant is completely disgusting.

Played some poker. Did poorly. My own fault. 

My phone is killing me! I'm sooo ready for a replacement although I'm still not 100% into the iPhone5.

Watched the Browns game. Awful coaching. This article sums it up nicely. 

This coming weekend...corn mazes, Halloween parties, football, and who knows what else.

Work is going great again! We are pretty well caught up on tech issues and I'm now able to focus on some projects. We are going full wireless at our HS which should be cool. Holiday season isn't far off. I'm taking the week of Thanksgiving and possibly all of Christmas break off.

Speaking of work, this juicy bit of gossip is rolling around lately. He used to be chairman of our regional tech committee and I worked closely with him on a few tech projects. WTF? What are you thinking when you decide this is a good idea? Very smart guy too.

Looking for an inexpensive laptop? Click here.

Geek porn

Check this out

Zeppelin man!

Celebration Day was pretty damn good for a bunch of old farts. They played about 20 songs, most of them the hard-charging stuff they were most famous for. They even played Stairway to Heaven. I can think of a few other songs I'd like to have seen them do as well. They shortened up Whole Lotta Love and Dazed/Confused. People in the theater (which was pretty full) cheered between songs. Cool.

I want to take my crazy cousin Nick to see it, he'll love the show, and I bet he hasn't been to see a movie in years. 

Browns win!

Saw a victory at the Factory this weekend! Great game. We actually scored some points. Weather was great too except for the rain near the end. The Steelers lost Thursday night so it was a great weekend.

We hit the casino at 10:00 am to put in our 30 minutes to get free parking and buffet. I lost $2 at 2¢ slots while Caprice banked $75, so that worked well. The buffet was ehhh...OK but not great. Great price though!

Ray and Brad had the other 2 Browns seats so it was good to see them.

Bowling Friday night (no Louis CK dammit). We went to Cedar Point Saturday but got rained on and only rode 1 ride.

This week, going to  see Celebration Day  Wednesday night at Cedar Lee, cash game at Hip's Thursday. Halloween party this weekend. Made some amazing chicken parmesan last night. Haven't made it in about 15 years but damn it was good!

I love the Cleveland Horseshoe Casino!

Took home $292 last night after 4 hours of solid play. Was on a roller coaster for a while where I was down about a hundo but managed to get it back. Made amazing reads all night long. So much so that people stopped calling my bets later on and I had to change gears a bit. Made a couple nice bluffs against 2 of the tighter players at the table, where I knew for certain what they were holding. Worked brilliantly.

I was only in for a single buy-in which was nice. It's so much less stressful than being $600-800 deep and trying to dig back out. It's really not easy with the heavy rake.

Hip was there and took home another trophy in PLO. Also saw Matt G, T-Way, Colin, Pringle, Keith.

Looking back over my last 20 sessions, I am 15-5, although I think there may be a loss in there somewhere that I neglected to record but can't be positive. .750 is pretty good! It's right around where I usually am when I keep my head on straight, focus, and stay in the game.

Hoping for a nice weekend weather-wise. Browns game Sunday vs CIN. Not expecting a win, but hoping for a watchable game where we don't get rained on. We'll probably play some blackjack at the casino to get free parking and free buffet. Go Browns!