The Results Are In

As it says in the description up above, I'm not much for posting personal stuff here, but I'm really happy about this, so here goes.

Back in April I went to the doctor and got a not so great report. Nothing horrible, but not so good. Low HDL (good cholesterol) high Triglycerides, and I put on 15 pounds last year. My diet wasn't that horrible, so it basically meant get my ass off the barstool and into a gym. Three months later after joining the gym and a few diet changes I'm happy to report.

I lost 12 pounds
Triglycerides are down to 150 from 236. <200 is desirable
HDL is up to 32 from 26, still a little low, but the doc is sure it will continue to improve as I continue to exercise.

Overall heart rate, BMI, flexibility and other stuff greatly improved as well, but I won't bore you with all that.

The real story here is, the little changes it took to get here don't feel like a sacrifice, and my overall energy is much better!

Queens Subway Car

More Brewing with Zenpunk - Bottling Day

Now that's a beer - the finished wort

The Brewmaster - adding the malt

and of course a taste.
At this point it's flat, carbonation will happen in the bottle, but I'd say it is on it's way to being a tasty beer.

Whoops forgot to take a picture of the actual bottling.

The Jump

I'm horrible with dates, and the years when I did stuff, it annoys me. I jumped out of a friggin' plane and I can't tell you what year it was, I'd have to guess 1998.
Anyway, I was working with Zenpunk at the time, we had some big advertising client meeting, and the theme was Unforgettable. Each participant had to tell a story about an unforgettable experience in their life. I let this video tell the story. Zenpunk did this cut down, with the personalized soundtrack, unlike the original produced by Skydive the Ranch, which had Ozzy. Thanks for digging it out ZP.

Brewing Beer with Zenpunk

I took the trip out to Queens today, to lend a hand, mostly watch Zenpunk start a new batch of beer. This to be a Blueberry Oak German Alt

First he lays out the ingredients, obviously I can't tell you the top secret recipe.

Derek lends a hand

The Brewmaster shows off the wort.

The Wort with grains.

Sparging (rinsing) the grains.

More Sparging

The Boil

The final Wort with hops. Now cool, transfer to fermenting bucket and wait.

And I head out into the snow, back to Brooklyn.

First Post of 2009

Happy New Year

Taxiing at JFK, flight to VA before the Holidays

Obama's Victory, Our Victory

A lame attempt at eloquence after a long day.

The first time I felt this kind of communal, patriotic togetherness was September 11, 2001. Surrounded by tragedy, fear, and uncertainty. Later squandered by the misdeeds of the Bush administration.

The next time was at the protests surrounding the 2004 Republican National Convention in New York, the energy was invigorating, and challenging but tempered by defeat in the elections.

Tonight, finally the spirit is in Victory. People are celebrating in the street, dancing, shooting off fireworks, yelling with excitement.  When we wake up tomorrow and the day after tomorrow still facing two wars and a horrible econimic struggles, let us not forget this spirit, let us not squander this moment again. I will challenge myself to keep the feeling alive in myself, I hope we can all do the same and really make this a victory for change. This is just the beginning if we choose to make it so.

Fed Ex

I worked at UPS loading trucks one year during Christmas rush, so I know what packages go through on the line. I also understand the stress of trying to cram all those boxes onto a truck at a crazy pace, but I've never seen a package beat up like this before. Fed Ex is lucky Quantum did a good job of packing that LTO drive. Despite it being the second unit they've had to ship, because the first one did not have a faceplate. But that's a rant for another day.

Oh no, where'd it go?

Not the standard post, but it's related.

Over the weekend I went looking for my camera, and couldn't find it. I tore my apartment apart in search, with no results. I resigned myself (i.e. hoping and praying) that I must have left it at work. Monday morning, zip, nada, zilch at the job. Perhaps that's what made me so dang cranky, but I digress. This morning, I went into a bag, that I had torn through about 10 times on Sat. But this time, sure enough, there it was buried in the deep recesses of a random pocket. I swear sometimes there are little monsters that hide stuff and then put it back, just to mess with me.

Moral of the story: I need to take more pictures. If the camera is in constant use, I'll have a better idea of when and where I used it last, and it's less likely to get buried. Spring is just around the corner, that should help.

A giant sigh of relief.

iHeart David Lynch

via the Rude Morgue