Freak of Nature

Stuff

2012-03-01T16:38:00.000-05:00

I went to the library this morning and checked out some movies and books. I started reading one book about money but it was nothing but stupid brainwashing by a couple of news media morons. So, that book goes back. I read the first chapter in a book on copy writing for the web. It's about nine years old, but has some good points. It's also outdated and misinformed on some issues. One thing the author recommends as a good use of customer interaction is a web application that is nothing but spyware. You have to know these things when you're king.

I went grocery shopping this afternoon and got some things for Mom. I have been snacking on grapefruit lately. I haven't done a lot of work on my project. I re-wrote my bow ad on craigslist this afternoon and lowered the price on the bow I want to sell. The ad has been up for a week now and no response. I am thinking craigslist is not an effective means to sell anything. You have to find somebody who wants what you have, and the pool of local people who read craigslist and are looking for any one thing in particular is fairly small. eBay might actually be more effective at selling things because they are worldwide.

I am going to do some reading and waste some time online this afternoon. I read books for a while today and had fun browsing around at the library. I am going to find a better way to spend my time than publishing boring blog posts about all the boring stuff I do all day. Besides, I have other places to write things that don't involve random people from who knows where reading about my thoughts.

Learning

2012-02-29T17:38:00.001-05:00

I learned a few things about spreadsheets and databases this evening. I also learned that it's going to take some more learning before I figure this stuff out. I have three different software apps where I can create spreadsheets and databases. I don't know if I will focus on one in particular or try to learn them all. Maybe I will learn none of them.

I have wasted a lot of time on Google+ in the last week. There is a lot of stuff on that network. There is a lot more than I have on FaceBook or MySpace. I read about some ultra-small computer there this morning. I am learning all kinds of things. Google+ is also very distracting if you follow the right people.

I have some things to do this evening on my computer. I didn't eat a whole lot of food today. I had a couple corned beef sandwiches for dinner. I haven't exercised in days. There is a fog outside all afternoon. The wind has calmed down. We might get storms on Friday. Not much is happening on my blog or website. I am thinking up some plans for the future.

I'm From the Land of the Ice and Snow

2012-02-29T10:58:00.001-05:00

Freezing rain woke me up this morning. It was pattering on my window. I turned on the radio to drown out the annoying sound. There is still a bit of ice on the trees. It is supposed to warm up today. I spent a bit of time reading this morning. I read enough to realize there were two books I did not want to read. Oh well, no shortage of books around here.

I am cooking up a slab of corned beef this morning. It is boiling in a pot on the stove. Yesterday I went to Game Stop and looked over all the new games. It made me think I need a lot of money for some reason. I read about some tiny computer this morning. I am not full of motivation today.

With any luck the sun will come out later. I am going to do some reading online today. I am getting tired of all the stupid emails people send me. Not much is happening around here today. It might be a good day to just goof off and play games.

Being a Lazy Bum

2012-02-28T12:00:00.002-05:00

I didn't do much today. I had breakfast, I fed the cats, I helped with the laundry. I don't know, maybe I will go out later. Maybe I will sit around all day and read updates on Google+ or something. I haven't exercised in days. I took my vitamins this morning. I am about to have lunch.

Maybe I will put another ad on craigslist today for some old radio gear. Still no bites on the bow. Maybe I will just go out and read books at the book store. I am not very motivated today. It's cold and an ice storm is coming tonight. I should check the weather.

Business is Complicated

2012-02-27T14:08:00.000-05:00

I was reading about bookkeeping this morning. Accounting makes little sense to me. They can't even keep straight debits and credits. Money in and money out would make more sense. If you have a bill to pay that's a credit. and if somebody has to pay you that's a credit. I'm sure they do this just to make sure you have to hire an accountant. All I want to do is sell a few of my books. Maybe I want to start a huge corporation and put Amazon out of business. All this talk of money is making me think big.

It's windy today. I went out to the store for a while and looked around. The sun was shining. Mom and Dad went out shopping. I got a lot of spam in my email. Still no interest in the bow I listed for sale. There is more junk around here that has to go. At least I am learning something real about business by reading this book on accounting. I don't see how you can add entertainment expenses as a legitimate business expense. I suspect this is one reason places go bankrupt. All the rules you have to follow to keep records.

I am sitting in my room typing this afternoon. I have a plan to use a simulator to start my book business. The state has one on its website. I went to the book store today. I don't see how they can make any money with all the inventory they carry. Just logging all the stuff that's there must eat up a lot of capital. And the employees were mostly standing around talking to each other. Shouldn't they be talking to the customers? I don't know how places stay in business run like that.

This blog is like talking to myself. I might go back and read it someday. I might delete it all again. I don't know what the future holds. I read for a while this morning about books. I don't understand why people read fiction. Do they like to hear about other people's imaginary problems? Fiction has caused a lot of problems in the world. People think fictional characters are real people and they follow the advice of fictional characters instead of rational, actual human beings. I have lost almost all interest in fiction. If I want to live an imaginary life, I will go to sleep and have a dream.

I had a dream last night. I was riding a dirt bike down the power line easement. There were sand traps on a golf course and golfers trying to swing out of the traps. I got to the end of the line and turned off to the left. There was a beautiful lake with white sand beaches. I drove the bike down the beach in the gentle waves and followed the shoreline. The lake was blue and went on forever. The beach was white and was flat and clear. It was warm and I woke up in the middle of this dream.

It is a quiet day. The house is empty. I am wasting time writing. I have nobody to talk to. I can't figure out business. I have no friends I can call and talk to. I went to the store today. It is cold and rain is coming. I am thinking of a song by the Animals called By the Sea.

After the Storm

2012-02-26T17:07:00.000-05:00

I am sitting in my room hiding again. I cooked and served a large meal. I cleaned up most of the mess. They are all visiting now. It is surprisingly quiet in the house for there being so many people. I made some tea and I am sitting in my room sipping it. I am not the only one who writes in a journal and does art. My niece was out in the front room a while ago writing in a spiral notebook.

I suppose it was a nice day outside today. It warmed up a little bit and the sun was shining. I have been checking in on my Google+ profile every now and then for the last few days. There was some interesting stuff today. The stuff that ends up in my feeds on MySpace and FaceBook just doesn't interest me. It's not just that I don't know most of the people on my friends list there, it's that I just don't care about people's personal lives or the latest music releases. Google+ is at least interesting. I added all the circles they suggested except for politics. That's the last thing I want, political spam on my social network.

I started reading a book about book shopping last night called The Book Shopper. It's partially interesting. I am really not interested in some random book buyer's personal life, but his stories about book stores and book collectors are interesting. It's just too busy around here today to do any reading. It's straining my concentration now to even think of something to write. Catering dinner for 14 people takes a bit of effort.

I am going to park myself on Google+ for a while and read the feed. It's just not a day for doing any real work. It's not a day for doing any gaming either. Point, click, and read I might be able to handle.

Another Busy Day

2012-02-26T14:33:00.003-05:00

People are starting to arrive. In a few minutes I will put the taters on to boil. The chickens are in the oven and there are cinnamon buns on the table. We have pickles and tomatoes out on the table. There is some orange juice still to be mixed up. I am going to take it easy today and stay out of the way when I am not busy serving food and cleaning up.

I tried to play games for a while but it is impossible when there are so many interruptions. I hooked up Morrowind and made my way to Ebonheart to try and find the barbarian from Skyrim. I went to the Skyrim Mission but he wasn't there. Nobody at the Skyrim Mission would tell me anything about Skyrim. I guess that's because they hadn't made the game yet when Morrowind was released.

Morning Sun

2012-02-26T11:00:00.002-05:00

I just had breakfast. I am about to make more coffee. I fed Sneaky the cat. I checked my new books website and it is listed in Google. I even get top ranking for my name. I looked into downloading a game this morning. It wanted to install a toolbar and reset my homepage. It wanted to install a P2P client to serve the game data. I decided not to download the game today. Games want to take over your computer.

I might play Morrowind for a while today. I haven't played that game in a while. I haven't played any games in a while. I might look into listing some more of my excess stuff on craigslist. I have gotten no response to my ad for a bow I put up some days ago. Maybe nobody is looking for a classic bow these days. It's hard to say what people are looking for. I have a project to work on when I want to work. I have wind chimes playing gentle tunes outside my window.

Coffee

2012-02-26T08:52:00.002-05:00

It's Sunday morning and I'm waiting for the coffee to perk. We are having company again today, but I will have a good time. I am taking a break from work today to do some gaming. The sun is shining this morning and it is cold outside. I have books to read, games to play, and any number of things to do. It will be a nice day and I will have a good time. I am building a future for myself one day at a time. Last night I had a dream that I lived in a cave with a dragon. Today I am going to find some dragons. It will be a fine day.

Not Doing Much Today

2012-02-25T18:09:00.002-05:00

I went to the library this afternoon and checked out some books on business and a set of movies to watch. I worked on my website a bit today and added a book I bought at the library sale. I cooked bratwurst and sauerkraut for dinner. I fed the cats way too much food. I am going to have to get a bag of cat food and let them eat that.

I am thinking about trying out a game again and seeing if it works. I haven't played Warcraft in about a month because the game kept crashing and losing link. Maybe a free game like Fiesta would work better. I don't play Guild Wars much because it had so much lag. I am getting tired of working on websites every day, but it's still interesting. I have to have something to do that makes me happy.

Cold

2012-02-25T11:46:00.003-05:00

I went out to Kroger this morning and got a lot of produce and other stuff. The store was a bit busy, but then it's Saturday morning. I had to look all over the place to find what I needed. The frozen bread dough was hidden on the lowest shelf of the freezer section and I walked past it two times before spotting it. I spent five minutes scanning the shelf of plastic bags before I found the plain old style non-ziploc type bags for loaves of bread. I don't think they make it real easy to find what you're looking for sometimes.

It's cold this morning. Sneaky the cat came looking for me early. I took her some hot dogs for breakfast. We don't have a lot of snow and ice today at least. It's supposed to warm up this week a bit. I have a lot of work to do on my website over the coming months, but that isn't a problem. It's my new project and has the potential to pay off, unlike a blog that nobody reads and can't buy anything from.

I helped Dad scan a very old picture of me into his computer this morning. It's the one Mom has been carrying around in her wallet for the last 49&1/2 years. I have some old pictures myself, but have no need to put them on my computer. I am happy to live in the present and think about the future.

A Long Day

2012-02-24T22:32:00.000-05:00

I read up on starting a business in Michigan this evening. I will have to raise some money for a sales tax license and perhaps a local business license, of which there is some doubt that there even is a local license. I might have to talk to the township clerk. In any case, it's the tax stuff that gets complicated, though I can probably handle that like I did last year as being self-employed. I also have to learn about accounting and keeping records. I will also need a database of customers names, emails, and shipping addresses. I am not about to make an automated system as I have no customers yet, but it will come in time.

I'm a bit tired tonight from working today. I worked on my project. I have to work every day now. I can still do stuff around the house and go places, but now I have something that may end up being productive. I am making things up as I go along and am discovering things as I need to know them. In the last week I have learned web design, organization, some advertising and how to set up content on a website. There will be more things to learn in the coming weeks, but right now I am going to curl up in bed and get some sleep.

More Work

2012-02-24T19:10:00.000-05:00

I did some more work on my website this evening. I have a bit of thinking and research to do before anything happens on this project. It's going to take some time to get all the books added to the pages. I am getting set up to process payments and make shipments. Right now this is like an extension of my book collecting hobby, but I am going to turn it into a business. I have some reading and work to do to make this project a reality.

I have more work to do on my body as well. I had a restricted diet today and didn't indulge in any sweets. I had a healthy dinner with lots of vegetables. I did 30 situps tonight. I just got done having a sneezing fit. I have a nice hot cup of tea to sip.

I am doing some online research on how to set up a business tonight. It doesn't matter that I have no customers yet. It doesn't matter that I have ten books in my inventory without prices yet. It doesn't matter that I have no ink in my printer. None of that matters. What matters is that I get going on making something that has the potential to grow and make a profit. I won't be making any profits at first because I paid out full price for a lot of my books. They are doing nothing for me now sitting on a shelf taking up space. Paid for and shipped out, they have potential.

A Couple Hours Working

2012-02-24T14:14:00.000-05:00

I added five more books to my books website. I added a listing for format, hardcover or paperback, to each book in the category list. I haven't done anything about adding price or shipping information yet, or payment terms. I am working on creating a database of owned books and my reactions to those books as a starting point. Google Sites is turning out to be fairly easy to use to create pages and edit information. This is going to be a long project and I will be doing something on it most days just to have something to work on. Right now my book website is a hobby, but I can see it turning into a business one of these days.

I have to go brush the snow drifts off the windshields of the cars before it freezes into a thick layer of ice. It is above freezing now, but will be getting colder tonight. The day is not turning out so bad even though it is cold and wet. I fed the cat at lunch and she was a bit wary because I put her food on the porch instead of walking out to the garden through the snow. I have had almost enough typing for one day. Now it is time to do some reading and then cook dinner. I think I will have some tea as well this afternoon.

Lackluster Snowstorm

2012-02-24T11:25:00.000-05:00

There's not a lot of snow on the driveway this morning. We got a couple inches left on the lawn. It's about 35 degrees outside this morning and some light snow is still falling. I think the news media like to blow things all out of proportion to increase the views on their advertisements. I have to make an effort to stop watching the news.

I read for a little while this morning. I checked out my website on another computer to see if the text would wrap on a different monitor. The website works fine. I read a book that was all about how to market to people in email, at least the part I read was about that. I got some wonderful spam this morning that wants me to sign up to be an affiliate marketer for an online psychic. I got a lot of other spams wanting me to date somebody's mom and take penis pills.

Today I am going to work on getting some more books on my website. I have gotten no response to my ad for the bow on craigslist. I am not expecting much from that ad anyway. I just mainly wanted to write an advertisement and see if it got any response. Some items you need a bigger market than just the local bargain shoppers. I am also finding out that if you want something from the net, you have to get it for yourself. Third party providers always want a piece of the pie in some way.

I had a lot of crazy dreams last night. I kept waking up and looking out the window at the snow. I haven't done any exercise in a while. I had snacks in the evening the last few days. My weight has not gone up, but it hasn't come down either. The roads don't looks too bad today and I am thinking of taking some books back to the library. I haven't played games in over a week. I guess I'm just bored and need somebody to talk with.

Winter Weather

2012-02-23T22:36:00.000-05:00

It's almost the end of February and the snow is coming. I'm not going anywhere tomorrow. I'm going to sit in the house and watch the snow accumulate. The cat will probably come looking for me like she did three times today. I will shovel off the porch and brush the snow off the cars and clear around them with the snow shovel. When it looks like most of the snow is done for the day I will get the tractor going and plow out the driveway. It was like this every week last year. We have had it easy so far this year. I just really don't like snow. Perhaps it was years of riding a bike all year in bad weather that got me this way.

It's quiet now and nothing is happening outside. I hear the wind chimes playing outside my window. Watching the weather makes it seem like the world is coming to an end every time there is a drop of rain or an inch of snow. I really don't like TV that much. We watched an Attenborough documentary on DVD this evening. Monkeys have some sense, they live in the tropics. I am thinking how nice it would be to live in Hawaii. It would be expensive. I am working on my plan to get there. People in Hawaii can't all be rich. Someday I will get away from this annoying winter climate.

I worked on my website today. I am still trying to come up with a design for that site I can use. I am learning from what I have now. I am learning how to organize my thoughts. I have a lot of books and have spent a lot of time reading over the years. I have spent a lot of time writing over the last few years as well. Apparently I am not very good at selling things. It takes time to learn new skills. I read some chapters in a book on internet marketing today. I might have some time to read tomorrow. Now I am going to check the weather website and go to sleep.

Waiting for the Snow

2012-02-23T17:14:00.000-05:00

The storm is coming. It's supposed to snow from 8:00 tonight until afternoon tomorrow. Near as I can figure there is supposed to be 4-8 inches of snow. I will wait for it to end and then clear the drive with the tractor. We don't have to go anywhere anyway. It might be a bit breezy as well, but nothing too bad. Last year I was cleaning up storms like this almost every week or two. This year has been easy so far.

I am enjoying working on my book site. It's a big project, but I am learning things from making the website every time. There is a lot more freedom in using website editing tools than simple blog editors. I can add things to the beginning or end of the pages I create. Blogs always stack onto the beginning of the page. I like having a home page that is the same or can be updated and changed, but doesn't shift position.

As far as I can tell I have had no visitors to my new website. There is next to nothing there so I am not surprised. When I get some more content and some things set up I will do some promotion. What I know about web promotion is fairly limited. It may end up I buy advertising on pay per click. There needs to be something set up to harvest profits from visitors. It all boils down to having something to sell. I have books I could sell, but there needs to be a reason people buy from me. I will have to sell at a loss over list price to get customers. I am learning about things every day.

When all this snow comes tomorrow I will have to do some work. It will probably take me a couple hours to get it all cleared off the trucks and the driveway and the porch. We had worse problems last year. All winter the snow fell and it was cold. All spring it rained and the basement flooded. Something always happens in this country with the weather. Why am I wasting time writing obvious blog posts when I could be cataloging books?

Working on My Website

2012-02-23T15:23:00.000-05:00

I added five books to my book catalog this afternoon. I am beginning to really like working with web pages. It's a bit tricky sometimes adding links to other pages with the Google editor, but I am mostly just adding links to new pages under existing pages, so I haven't had any real problems. I have five books and five short blurbs about the books in my web library now. There are hundreds more in my collection.

I had to go into Ann Arbor again this morning to get a refill on my prescription. They moved the pharmacy, but the new location is closer and less disturbing. The owner of the place filled me in on any changes in dealing with getting refills or insurance, and it's basically the same deal they had before. I was back home here by 10:30 this morning.

I haven't had any replies to my craigslist advertisement I put up last night for one of my bows. I haven't even had any scammers or spam from the post. Perhaps I am expecting too much from the ghetto of the internet, like a fair price for a vintage bow. In any case, it was something to do. I am really more interested in working on my books website anyway right now. Anything I can do to decrease the middlemen in my business is only going to make my life easier.

Advertising

2012-02-22T19:58:00.000-05:00

I took some pictures of a bow I have around here and wrote up a short advertisement for craigslist. I had to do the phone verify thing to post the advertisement, but that's not a problem. I should be able to post ads in some of the other sections now like activities and groups. I am mainly just doing an experiment here to see if anything actually sells on craigslist. I am thinking that since it's not hunting season a bow is not going to be a hot ticket item. Then again you never know, it is a collectible item.

I started reading a book on marketing this evening but it was a bit confusing. Also the theme of the book seemed to be ways to spend money on things you don't actually need. I don't need to pay somebody to tell me the market price of items. All I have to do is ask Google how much something costs to buy. I would take my bow to a shop to sell but a shop would try to rip me off because they want to make a profit. I sold some silver coins to a pawn shop some months ago and the guy actually complained about paying too much for an ounce of silver, and he gave me ten dollars under spot for some coins he would turn around and sell for ten over spot. Businesses are in the business of ripping off customers.

I have a nice nature show to watch now. I don't expect to get any response to my craigslist ad any time soon. It's possible I might sell my bow but probably not likely. It's not possible to sell art on craigslist, I found that out last year. I probably shouldn't expect too much from a free advertisement in a local area. I am learning things from actually writing an advertisement and taking some pictures.

Snow Coming

2012-02-22T18:05:00.000-05:00

We might get six inches of snow tomorrow night. There's a lot of water moving in from the Pacific right now. The snow we had yesterday is almost all gone. I hope this shit misses us, but you never know in Michigan. It's still winter and it's still cold.

I am going to go look over some of the books I got from the library this morning. I spent the last couple hours looking over craigslist and some sites about how to write listings. I see a lot of stuff on that site that's just stupid. Still, for a free service I suppose it's not bad. I see a lot of people listing medical cannabis on that site. I suppose a lot of people who use craigslist smoke weed.

I didn't do much today aside from go to the library and take the trash to the dump. I got rid of a bit of garbage today. I suppose I could have scavenged parts from some old radios but I just wasn't interested. I could have grown some flowers in the old flower bowl, but that was so dirty it went too. I have a couple books on marketing to read into this evening. Perhaps I can learn something instead of waste my time reading pointless classified advertisements.

Morning

2012-02-22T09:33:00.001-05:00

I woke up about 7:30 this morning and got out of bed. The sun was just lighting up the eastern sky. I made coffee and sat around for a while looking out the window. I tried to watch TV for a while, but it was all garbage. I had oatmeal for breakfast and got my face shaved.

I have a book to go back to the library this morning later. I am going to look through their listings and see if I can find anything interesting to read. I have some work to do today as well. I have some things to list on craigslist and try to sell. I did some cleaning up around here yesterday and the place is looking better. I have a lot of things to do these days.

This blog is starting to get some visits from Google searches. I am not looking to get popular any more. I want to get into better shape, get going with something to make money, and make a better life for myself. I have a good life now, but there are some things I really would like to do. For now I am going to do some reading and looking over web pages. Blogging is good writing practice but it doesn't pay the bills.

Getting Set Up for Business

2012-02-21T19:25:00.000-05:00

I re-installed Google Talk this evening so I can get notifications when email comes into my Gmail account. I had just been checking now and then, but I think it's better to get the notice when something comes in so I can get back to people right away if they contact me about anything I might have for sale. Most of my email is just advertisements trying to sell me junk, but that's just because I haven't tried to sell anything in a while.

I looked through my closet this evening and found a number of things I can put up for sale this week. I have an old Bear bow that might be collectible. I have some old radio gear I haven't used in years. I have other things that could go as well to make some room around here. Then of course there is the main thing, the books. I have a website for them that will send me notice if anyone is interested. I am getting set up to make a living doing what interests me.

I have a book that should go back to the library tomorrow. I might look over their website and see if they have anything that will help me in my new business. Libraries have a lot of books. I have a lot of books. I also have a lot of stuff that could be sold to make some money to get going on this project. I am tired of sitting around with nothing to do all day except read and cook. I am going to make something good out of my life.

Cooked Dinner

2012-02-21T17:37:00.001-05:00

I fried steak, roasted potatoes and boiled asparagus for dinner. I am not being overly productive this evening. I am thinking about doing some reading tonight. I was going to read a book this morning but ended up cleaning instead. Perhaps what I did was more productive. I have a lot of area to work and store items now. I have a counter to package goods to ship. Junk always seems to accumulate. I need to get rid of all this junk and do something fun. I need to turn junk into money and spend the money on useful items.

Working

2012-02-21T15:14:00.000-05:00

I got off my ass this morning and cleaned up the hall near my bedroom. I have a book case, a bench, a desk, and some storage shelves now. There was a lot of junk I either threw out or put elsewhere. I need a place to put books I have cataloged and a place to do shipping stuff like packing and a place to take photos of stuff. I have all that now. I spent about three hours today cleaning and moving stuff. Now I have room to do some work.

I went out for a little while after lunch today. I went to the book store and looked around at computer books. There was one book that mentioned Google Sites on like two pages, but I already know more about that service than was in the book. It was a $25 book as well.

At the book store I remembered they used to have a free book shelf at the college where I used to work and take classes. I left the store and headed over to the college. I found a place to park and walked into the library. The free book shelf was gone. There were some recycling bins there instead. I walked around and looked over the place. The pendulum I had fixed was broken again and it looks like they got rid of the control unit. It was probably just a broken wire. I walked through the cafeteria. The book store was bought out by Barnes and Noble. The cafeteria looked like the ghetto. I walked through there but didn't feel like it was a safe place to sit and have a snack.

I looked over the job board in the other building. There were about 100 jobs listed, most of them fairly low skill. I imagine they have some better info on the website. They put up a new building since the last time I was there. They also busted a road through the woods where I used to hang out at lunch. There were a lot of people wandering around. I can't believe I worked there for 16 years.

I have some steak thawed out to cook for dinner. It snowed today, but most of the snow is melting. I checked the stats on my new website and it seems the tracking code installed correctly. I am still trying to decide if I want to use photos on the site or just go with a text description. It's a lot of work to take a picture of every book and do all the editing and posting. It also takes up a lot of storage. I will probably go with a text description and leave it at that for now.

I have some junk I will probably put on craigslist to sell. I have some pumps and some scientific equipment. I have an old dart board and some old radio gear somebody may want. Most of all I have books, and I am working on setting up a book business. There's no law against selling books. I probably won't make a profit at first, but that's not the point. The point is to start something I can work on and bring in some cash to fund bigger things. You have to start somewhere.

All Day at Work

2012-02-20T22:34:00.000-05:00

I spent almost all day working on my new website. I learned a lot of things today. I made and installed a logo. I added Analytics to the pages. I even made a contact form and added it to its own page. I don't even have to remember how to do all this because I can always look up the information again if I need it.

I like my new hobby working on my books webpage. Tomorrow begins the real work adding the books. I looked around at various database programs to store library data, but they are not ideal or even useful. I can make my own database on a website and just work on that. If I keep the data to text I will never run out of storage space. It's going to take a long time to catalog my hundreds or thousands of books, but that's not a problem. It will give me something to do aside from endlessly typing useless blog posts.

Learning

2012-02-20T09:19:00.000-05:00

Last night after getting home from the party I did some reading online about how to set up a website with Google Sites. It seemed simple enough, so I logged into my account and spent the next two and a half hours learning how to use the app and set up a site for my book collection. I have decided that I like books enough to do something about organizing and marketing my collection. I managed to set up a very simple site with some pages for the different categories of books. Today the real work begins, adding data.

I still like blogs for ease of use and as a means of recording my journal. I want to learn how to do web design and set up websites. A website is organized in a different way than a blog. It is more open and more customizable. I still have no idea how to get at the template code and add certain things like Google Analytics. I think that is going to be something I look up this morning and attempt to do. I had a deuce of a time setting up the tabs on the tabbed menu of the page template I chose, but it turned out to be very simple. I am having fun and learning something new.

After yesterday's feast of pizza I am taking it easy on the food today. I had a bowl of oatmeal for breakfast and some milk in my coffee. My weight is up and down depending on the time of day. It's a little cold today, but I may get bundled up later and take a walk at the park. I am making some progress on my goals in life and am learning how to do things like edit websites. All I have to do now is make an effort to accomplish something every day and I will get somewhere.

Pleasant Afternoon

2012-02-19T19:17:00.000-05:00

I drove with Mom and Dad out to my sister's house this afternoon for a birthday party for my nephew. They had a house full of people and all kinds of food. I ate way too much pizza and some salad and had a slice of the angel food cake I baked this morning. It was a pleasant drive, though a bit long as she lives 40 miles away. Most of the driving was on the freeway, so it wasn't a bad trip.

I am thinking about things a lot these days. I am thinking about setting up my own website and doing some selling on my own. I am thinking about setting up an online book store and doing some mail order type business. I made a bookmarks folder for book type sites. The net is great for getting prices on books. I can get a price on almost any book just by searching for it on some of the sites that compare prices. I am also looking up ways to make my own site.

The picture above is of a trail in Marshall park in Ann Arbor. I like pictures of nature and the woods. I enjoy going out for hikes and exploring. Sometimes I bring a camera to take pictures. People used to live out in the woods back in the days before they had cities. Somewhere I have a tent, so in theory I could live for a while out in the woods. It's been a long time since I've been camping.

I have some more reading and looking around to do online this evening. I am going to try and set some things in motion tomorrow. I need to come up with a plan for how I want to set up my enterprises. They don't write books about how to bootstrap a business. The modern world runs on debt, and I'm not about to go into a lot of debt to do anything. I will figure out what I am going to do on my own. I have decided to do something with books because I love books and reading and writing. That's the first condition for success, love what you do.

Sunset

2012-02-19T09:53:00.001-05:00

Last summer, the back yard, evening, a passing storm and some photo enhancement. This morning I did some busy work in the kitchen. I baked an angel food cake for my sister's party this afternoon. Yesterday morning I baked some gluten free cookies for the same party today. I know how to cook at least. I might not have any engineering skills, but I know how to bake a cake.

The sun is shining again today and it is cold outside. I am just getting going on the computer this morning. Yesterday this blog had 30 page views. I think that's almost a record. I think posting a picture with every entry is something. If my words are boring, at least there is a photo to look at. I like the summer evening scene above. It makes me think of warm nights and gentle rain.

I am going to do some more reading this morning on how to sell stuff over the net. I might read up on how to write up effective advertisements. I got nowhere trying to sell my paintings on craigslist. People don't go to the internet's junkyard to buy expensive art. I sold a car there a couple years ago, but nothing else. I have a book on craigslist I read through once. I should read through it again and see if it gives me any ideas. There's some junk around here that I could probably sell.

It's quiet in this house this morning. I scraped the frost off the Jeep this morning so Mom and Dad could get to church. We have to drive out to Grass Lake this afternoon to visit my sister. I never get anything done on Sunday. I have some time this morning to read and have finished all the cooking for later. Now all I have to do is figure out what to study online or in a book.

Rat In a Maze

2012-02-18T14:11:00.001-05:00

I went to the book store this afternoon to look around. The parking lot was parked solid and cars were circling like vultures. I drove up a lane and circled back. A car was leaving a space and I swooped down and parked, though the clearance was tight. I backed out and re-aligned, and managed to get the door open and went to the store.

The book store was packed with people looking things over. I circled around and looked at some of the things they are trying to sell. I looked at clock radios, pedometers, bamboo pencil holders and various pens. I looked over the rack of business books. I looked at the discount books. I thought about all the cars circling the parking lot and the idiot who designed the parking lot to be like a maze.

I didn't find anything I wanted at the book store this afternoon. I was really not shopping anyway. I was doing reconnaissance of their operation. I was noting all the features of a book store that has managed to stay in business. They have a few books. They have a coffee shop. They have free WiFi and chairs. In short, they have a lot of things that cost a lot of money and I can't afford any of that with my zero dollars net worth. I was checking out their operation and thinking about things I could do myself, given the resources. A decent parking lot would be the first thing.

I took the picture above last summer. It is on an island in the Huron River. There were trails on the island and lots of trees. Some of the trees were dead and falling over. There were mosquitoes everywhere. I stopped long enough to take the picture and swat some pesky bloodsucking mosquitoes. It was a warm sunny day. Nobody charged me to go into the woods and take pictures. The woods is not a store. You don't need to get a tree to sign a model release.

What's It Going to Be Then, Eh?

2012-02-18T11:02:00.000-05:00

A good question and a quote from A Clockwork Orange to start the day. The sun is breaking in and out of the clouds this morning. It's cold. I baked some gluten free chocolate chip cookies this morning. I watched videos for I Shot the Sheriff on YouTube this morning as well. I got all kinds of annoying email that I ended up deleting. Today is a search for meaning.

I still have to do some kind of exercise today. I am thinking about putting some trance on the CD player and jumping around for a while. I had a wonderful night of dreams. What woke me up this morning was this dream I had about Chumlee driving a hovercraft. Never let Chumlee drive the hovercraft!

I am still considering selling some books. The fact is I have a lot of books that I have already read and have no desire to read again. I don't know how I feel about letting some faceless corporation have access to my bank account though. That's one of the things I found out about Half.com yesterday in my research, they can transfer funds from your account without your approval. I am not about to give that kind of access to my accounts to some other business. Does Ford allow their creditors to transfer funds owed them from Ford's bank account? I don't think things work that way in the real business world.

Another thing I learned about Half.com from reading their forum is they haven't even sent out 1099 forms for the 2011 tax year yet and had to file for an extension. It's a bad sign if some agency you are working with doesn't keep ahead of their tax obligations in a timely manner. I wouldn't want some half-assed third party snarling up my paperwork. I have more research to do on this company before I think about doing business with them.

So what's it going to be then, eh? I am going to hang around the house for a while this morning and do some more research. I am going to see what I can do about getting something together on my own that doesn't involve dealing with some huge company with terrible customer service. I might want to read a book or some websites about vertical integration in business. That's what Ford and Rockefeller did to make their fortunes. Why be a cog in a machine when you can be the entire machine?

Forming a Plan

2012-02-17T16:17:00.000-05:00

It's like wandering around in a maze trying to figure things out sometimes. I am learning some stuff by reading websites and books. I am learning other things by looking at what other people are doing. I have had a few other things distracting me today as well. I had to drive into town this afternoon and pick up a new prescription. There is a lot of traffic on the roads in the afternoon.

I am thinking about selling some of the books and things I have collected over the years. It's now a question of getting things organized. I have to keep track of costs and stuff like shipping. It means learning how to use spread sheets and databases. I have a book on that I checked out of the library the other day. It also means doing a bit more investigating. At least it's a free country and I can sell books and games and CDs if I feel like it.

I made a short plan for today last night before I went to bed. I wrote down that I want to investigate Half.com and see what kind of deal that company has. I am still working on my plan this evening. From what I have seen so far it looks like a good deal. You only pay them when something sells, and listings stay up until you take them down or until something sells. You set your own price for items and you don't have to take pictures or post long descriptions. They process payments and transfer your funds twice a month. I am still working on my short plan from last night, but I will probably make another plan tonight for tomorrow.

It hasn't been a hard day for me, but a lot of things have happened. I did some laundry this afternoon and drove out to the drug store. I fed the cat and played with her for a little while. I am going to get some dinner going in a few minutes. I am thinking about my future. I am thinking about things that interest me. I guess the one thing that has held my interest over the years is books. It is only logical that I should do something with books as a business. I know book companies have been going out of business right and left in the last few years, but it's a jungle out there. People are not going to stop reading books any time soon. Even if they all go to electronic format, there will still be a market for electronic books, and the profit margin on copying files is pretty high.

Rocks

2012-02-17T13:02:00.000-05:00

Boulders under the Huron Parkway bridge at Gallup Park Ann Arbor. I took this shot last summer I think. I like rocks like this. It's an interesting challenge to walk from one rock to another down to the edge of the river. I like the play of light and shadow and the way a color photo like this looks black and white.

I am doing some laundry this afternoon. I had a fibrous lunch of plain beans and coleslaw. After lunch I did my 30 situps. It's supposed to go up into the low 40s this afternoon with a dusting of snow tonight. I am thinking about what to do for the rest of the day. I think I am going to hang around the house and do chores and then broil some salmon for dinner.

A blog is not a very social project. I get page views here but have no idea if they are humans or robots. The person I am writing for is myself. I like the picture I posted here above. I like looking at rocks. I might have rocks in my head for rambling on endlessly about my life here. I am a rock that does not roll.

BMX Bike

2012-02-17T10:23:00.001-05:00

This is my Diamondback Joker out on the back porch on a snowy day last year. This is a nice little bike to throw in the truck and take to the park. I used to haul this bike to the park in the back of my 1985 RX-7. It was a tight fit, but the bike managed to squeeze into the hatch of that tiny car.

I tried to read a book on web design this morning. It was all about how I should profile my visitors and choose keywords to attract traffic that converts into sales. I'm not selling anything here on these pages. Right now I am just re-posting some pictures on my blog to make it easier to look at them.

I used to ride a bike everywhere. I used to ride a couple hours every day. I used to be in a lot better shape, even though I used to drink a lot of beer. This morning I cued up the Audioslave on my CD player and did my three rounds of dumbbell exercises. I wore myself out lifting things up and putting them down. It felt good to get some exercise. I am losing a bit of weight at a slow rate. I am on my third cup of coffee this morning.

The sun is shining this morning. The cat was looking for me at breakfast time, but she ran off somewhere. It's a bit chilly outside but it isn't raining. I have some online reading to do this morning and some planning to start. If I want to get anywhere in life I will have to start doing something productive. I am thinking of listing some books on Half.com to see if I can sell some of the books that are piling up around here. I wouldn't mind owning a book store. This might be a way to get something going without having to raise a ton of money and go into debt.

Bamboo in Winter

2012-02-16T18:51:00.002-05:00

This is a shot of my bamboo grove from last winter. The stand is a bit thicker this year and greener because of the mild winter. The variety is phyllostachys nuda, sometimes called snow bamboo. I bought a couple potted plants of this some years ago, one of which survived and propagated itself. I imagine this plant will get even bigger this coming year.

I just got done looking over Bamboo Bob's blog. There are other people who grow bamboo in this northern climate. I got the idea myself from watching the movie House of Flying Daggers. There is something mystical about a bamboo forest. It may take a few more years, but I am on the way to having an entire field of this stuff growing out back. At the very least, it makes a nice place to sit and look at the sky on a warm afternoon.

Sneaky the Cat

2012-02-16T18:14:00.001-05:00

It's not as easy to get a good picture of a black cat as I thought. Sneaky has been really social today for some reason. She spent all afternoon sitting in the yard waiting for me. This is one of ten shots I took and turned out the best. Most of the pictures she just looks like a black shape lurking in the shadows. In this one she's actually sneaking up on me.

The first time I saw this cat was last spring. She started lurking around the back field and hiding in the bamboo. She was around here so often I started taking food out to her, though I could never get very close. She would follow me at a distance and take off running if I looked at her sideways. After taking her food for six months or so every day she finally got close enough to me to pet. I don't advise petting Sneaky, she likes to use her claws.

I went out in the yard a few minutes ago and Sneaky was still out there. She came up to me and spent ten minutes circling around my legs and rubbing her face on my shoes. She has been acting a bit lonely today for some reason. There are other cats around but she doesn't seem to get along with them. The other cats seem to be toms and she's probably afraid of them. Sneaky is fairly wild, but seems to enjoy my company.

Flying Saucer

2012-02-16T16:09:00.000-05:00

I like this variety of morning glory, the Flying Saucer. It's white with pale purple star markings. I suppose it looks something like a flying saucer. I just like looking at flowers on miserable winter days.

We are having German night tonight for dinner. Sausages, sauerkraut and mashed potatoes. Not really health food but so what. I am losing a bit of weight, or at least I am not gaining more weight. I haven't had ice cream in over a month now and don't really miss it. I had about ten mini peanut butter cup candy things this afternoon for a snack. I've had about 600 Calories so far today which just isn't enough to keep a grown man running.

Sneaky the cat came looking for me again this afternoon. I think she just gets lonely and wants attention. I have no idea where all the cats around here came from this year. There are four or five of them that prowl about the area. I think people take them for rides and drop them off in the country. At least they are smart enough to figure out how to manipulate people for food. I should get my camera and go take a picture of Sneaky for my blog.

The Pond

2012-02-16T14:30:00.000-05:00

Blue sky, white clouds, still water and leafless trees. I took this shot of Gallup Pond a while ago but it probably looks the same. The pond didn't even freeze over this year much. Last time I was there ducks, geese and swans were swimming in the water and calling to each other. It has been a mild winter. I like the blue colors and the reflection of the sky in the water in this photo. If I am going to have a blog I may as well post pictures on the thing.

I did 30 situps this morning. I had oatmeal for breakfast and spaghetti for lunch. I saw a man out riding a bicycle on our road this afternoon when I was on the way to the store. There was a fine mist in the air and it was about 40 degrees. I'm not going anywhere on a bike today. If it dries up and we get some warm weather I may throw the bike in the back of the truck and go to the park and ride on the trails.

I picked up some canned beans at the store this afternoon. They were on sale and not much more expensive than the dry ones. They have some salt in them and some preservatives but that doesn't bother me. The plain great northern beans don't have sugar or pork fat like the baked beans. I also picked up three bags of sauerkraut that Mom wanted for some reason. We are having sauerkraut and bratwurst for dinner tonight. I got some huge sweet potatoes and some red seedless grapes. I got a bag of russet potatoes and some discounted Valentine's Day candy for gifts. I also got a couple boxes of ice cream sticks for Mom and Dad as well as four cans of coffee that was on sale.

I read for a while this morning but I am just not that interested in studying today. I am thinking about what I want to do with this blog and my life. I like writing about things, but in a way it's pointless. Nobody is going to pay you to read your blog. Nobody is going to buy advertising on my blog. I seriously doubt that actual humans even visit my blog. All the page views I get might be from robots looking for a place to spam links. I have no way of knowing. My blog really doesn't have a theme. I am not an expert on any topic. I am just an old man trying to get into better shape who likes writing words and now I like to post pictures I have taken of the world and nature. Perhaps I can do something with that as a hobby.

A Wonderful Spring Day

2012-02-16T11:48:00.000-05:00

There is still snow on the ground. There was fog this morning and the driveway was wet from the rain last night. Sneaky the cat came up to the house this morning looking for me. I took some food out to her bowl and she thanked me by rubbing all around my shoes like some kind of cat. The ground is wet and smells of spring. I am taking it easy this morning.

I spent some time reading about book stores this morning. I read the wiki on Borders. It was as I suspected, management problems, that drove that company out of business. I am thinking about starting my own little store of some sort. Perhaps I will just sell things over the internet. I have a lot of things I could sell in this house. In general, books have little resale value. I also have games, some scientific equipment. CDs, musical instruments, and infinite possibilities.

I found that picture above in my web album from a blog I deleted a while ago. It's some flower gardens at the botanical gardens around here. My little 2 megapixel camera takes some nice shots. You don't want huge image files on a website anyway. I will probably do some situps this morning and perhaps hit the weights later. I seem to be losing a bit of weight, but I have a long way to go. The flowers are not blooming yet, but a nice picture makes me think of warmer days.

Trees

2012-02-15T16:59:00.000-05:00

There is no snow in this picture. There are leaves on the forest floor. I took this picture some years ago, probably in the fall. The trunks of trees form vertical lines that lead up into the sky. In the distance, beyond the trees, is a parking lot.

I went out to the book store again this afternoon. I sat down and looked through a book on how to license ideas. The book was nothing but filler and wild promises. Nobody is going to pay you royalties or sign a contract with you for something as useless as an idea. The real idea is to find something people will believe enough to buy a book. I bet this person is making some money selling books.

I have bought a lot of books over the years. I have a lot of them on how to sell information, how to start a business, how to make money with a website. I don't know why I bother to read so many books that are so pointless. Nobody is going to pay you on the internet for any kind of information. The internet is about getting information for free. I learned more about selling ideas by reading search results on the internet than I did in reading this book for 20 minutes in the store.

There are trees on my blog now. They were on my blog before but ended up deleted when I deleted that blog. I deleted several of my blogs some months ago. I was not updating them and lost interest in the subject. This is going to be my all purpose blog for writing and posting pictures. A few people visit here every day. I like the picture above. I enjoy hiking through the woods and listening to the birds. I should go out into nature with my camera more often and take pictures and write little stories about my trips. I already have a few nature shots on this computer. Now, if I could find some people to take pictures of this might be a more interesting website.

I Want Spring to Come

2012-02-15T11:44:00.000-05:00

A beautiful flower for my blog. It is a Crimson Rambler morning glory. I grew a whole row of flower vines some years ago and took pictures when they bloomed. I want it to be warm again like summer. I don't care if the polar bears prefer to freeze their asses off. Life is green and red and blue and reaches for the sun.

My legs are not as sore as they were the last few days. I finished reading through the book on public domain this morning. I started reading a book on publication design. It's fairly interesting. It's why I added the design element of a big red flower on this post. I am incorporating form and color and leading the eye into the page. Besides, it cheers me up on this bleak, cold morning.

I did 30 situps this morning. I had oatmeal and coffee for breakfast. I took some of my vitamins today as well. I took out the garbage this morning. It's getting close to lunch time and I have leftover spaghetti to eat. I should really take more pictures of flowers and put them together into a book. I could write silly little blog posts about how wonderful nature is and how beautiful the world is and make designs for pages. In any case I like vibrant glowing flowers like the one above. It's something to inspire me on this cold winter day.

Wonderful Day

2012-02-14T17:47:00.000-05:00

I started reading a book on public domain stuff this morning. I am learning a lot about the subject from this book. For instance, if somebody publishes a public domain book and tries to say you can't use the public domain material yourself, they are just being a bastard and trying to claim rights to what is not theirs. Project Gutenberg can say you can't use their text, but it's really not their text, they got it themselves from the original source. You can't use their HTML markup, but I can add my own markup with a word processor from the text. It's good to know these things.

I went to Barnes and Noble this afternoon. They have a new line of public domain novels and stories. They got some nice hardcovers all done up in gold leaf and embossed designs. The books are not really that expensive either. I can get the same things on my computer for free. As long as a work is in the public domain, anyone can use the text and design a book and sell it without paying royalties to the dead authors. I spent like three hours reading this book this morning and it's giving me some ideas. At the very least I am learning about copyright issues.

I am not doing much else today aside from reading. My legs are still sore from doing squats on Sunday. I am trying to watch what I eat. I scraped the layer of fat off the bean soup I had for lunch. I don't know why you have to put a ham bone in bean soup. It's not the old days when you needed all the calories you could get to work all day. I have to start cooking for myself more often. My weight is stable now, but it will go back up if I don't pay attention to what I am eating.

I have some websites to check out this evening from the book on public domain. I am trying to read up on the legal issues with publishing old stuff. I have a few old books around here. Some of them are so poorly written by modern standards they are impossible to read. I saw some Shakespeare plays at the store today that came with translations. If you have to translate English there is a problem with your writing Will. People don't speak the same as they did 400 years ago. I don't know why people even bother with stilted incomprehensible verbiage in these modern times.

Late At Night

2012-02-13T22:11:00.001-05:00

I am getting ready to fall asleep. I have done some reading online this evening. I watched some nature videos on DVD. My legs are sore from doing all the squats yesterday. I hooked up a Google+ profile this evening but am not about to change my blog profile to spam my new social network every time I write something on my blogs. I am reading about public domain books. Various places are selling those books now. I am too tired to think tonight. I will do some more reading tomorrow.

Games

2012-02-13T14:40:00.000-05:00

I went to Game Stop today. I bought a collection of games like checkers, chess, card games and lots of other stuff for my DS. I tested the checkers game out and it kicked my ass. Computers are fairly smart.

I am feeling yesterday's squats in my quads today. I suppose I did enough of them. The house is quiet today and it is clean again. I went to the library this morning and checked out a lot of books. I got books on making books, on software, on public domain works and on eBay. I am going to do something on my own to make money. If it means selling a lot of stuff to get going, then that's what I will do.

I have a lot of things around here I could probably sell. I have some scientific equipment I really should list. I have art, but nobody buys art from an outsider. Art increases in value once you're dead. I am not dying for money. I am having a good time this afternoon just writing mindless blog posts. There is always something interesting to do when you have a computer.

I am not feeling so bad today. It's still cold outside and some light snow is coming tomorrow. Winter won't be around forever. Sneaky the cat came looking for me this morning. I took some food out to her after breakfast. I am thinking about what I want to do with my life. I think Amazon has the best idea, selling books and stuff on the Internet. I wonder if they are turning a profit yet. I notice Game Stop has better prices on games than Amazon. Amazon has put some of the book stores out of business. I wonder how to compete with giants and make my own fortune.

This blog has been getting some traffic. In a way it surprises me. I have no idea how random people find this blog. It could just be spam robots snarfing content for their splogs. It could be lost people looking for an article on cooking. It could be persons reading random blogs on Blogger here. I don't know because they don't leave comments. What kind of a comment could you leave on a personal journal? The only reason I am keeping this journal is the pleasure I get from writing these annoying posts.

I am going to go read listings on craigslist for a while. I wonder what kind of junk people are trying to get rid of today. I wonder if anyone has sold any of the books they listed over the weekend. I have enough books to open a small store. If I could figure out how to find people who want to buy the books I have I could sell them and make some money. It shouldn't be that hard to figure out how to sell something if people are looking for the thing you are selling. Marketing is nothing more than looking for people who want to buy what you got.

Hiding

2012-02-12T17:45:00.001-05:00

The house is full of people. They only ate for about two or three hours today. I have a headache from all the noise and am trying to avoid them until they go home. I did most of the cooking, serving, and cleaning up this afternoon. At least I don't have to socialize with them all.

Today has been a wasted day for the most part. I don't have the time or peace of mind to do anything productive. I am trying to think about my future but it is impossible to think in this house right now. I am sitting in my room reading mindless websites to take my mind off all the commotion. At least it will be quiet again when they all leave.

Cooking

2012-02-12T14:27:00.000-05:00

I prepped two chickens and have them roasting in the oven. I peeled three or four pounds of potatoes and they are sitting on the stove waiting to be boiled and mashed. The kitchen table is expanded and ready for guests. I have orange juice thawing on the counter ready to be mixed up. The house is quiet now on this cold day.

I looked through the ads on craigslist this afternoon and saw one looking for somebody to remove a 12 foot Christmas tree. I don't know, maybe I will see about doing that job. Shouldn't be too hard to chop a tree in half and throw it on the truck. Might take me an hour, but hell, $50 for one job is nice. It's physical labor too so I would get some exercise. I am kind of busy today with people coming over to visit, so it's not going to happen today.

I did some looking over of my accounts this afternoon as well. I am thinking of setting up some kind of operation selling things. I might need to get a business license and a sales tax license, but that's nothing major. I am still trying to get into better shape. That is going to be something that is a lifestyle change. I haven't had a lot to eat today and have been drinking some diet pops. I will be avoiding most of the food today. Some green beans and chicken breast with a spoonful of potatoes is probably going to be dinner. Now I have some more cooking to get to before people start showing up.

Squats

2012-02-12T11:37:00.000-05:00

I went down in the basement this morning to do some squats. I folded a towel and draped it over the back of my neck to cushion the bar. Then I hoisted the 50 pound barbell onto my shoulders and did my first ten reps of squats. I could hear my knees popping when I crouched down at the bottom of the squat. I ended up doing four sets of ten reps with the 50 pound barbell. I know this isn't a lot of weight to be squatting, but it's more than zero. I also got a bit fired up by this light workout and feel energized.

I have some cooking to do today and more than a bit of cleaning. I am not sure if my brother is coming over with his family, but he said he was last week. I brought up some chickens to thaw last night, and I will do mashed potatoes and green beans. It's not good for my diet to be watching people eat so much food even if it's only one day a week or every two weeks. In fact, I get put off food for a while after watching all the snacks and sugar and food they all eat. I had a sausage and a couple eggs so far today as well as about a cup and a half of milk in my coffee. I had pecans and a couple prunes for a snack last night. I have a layer of fat all over my body like some kind of walrus thanks to all the doctors who have been working on me.

I have been investigating publishing as a business. I really don't want to get involved in anything technical again. I don't want to spend my life fixing technology problems. I don't want to program robots to run factories. I don't want to travel all over the place working on computers. I want to read and write and perhaps make books. I am interested in books, not factories. They make books in factories. I worked in a print shop for a while some years ago. I ran print jobs and shrink wrapped reports, then boxed them up. I spent most of my time clearing paper jams in huge printers and replacing toner cartridges. I don't want to be a slave to some machine or spend my life being told what to do all the time. I want to do something interesting and control my own life. Perhaps I will go into publishing books on fitness, who knows.

Lose Weight and Get Into Shape

2012-02-11T14:39:00.000-05:00

There are many people in the modern world who are overweight and out of shape. Food is cheap and we don't have to work the fields by hand to produce it. Most people have jobs that involve sitting at a desk all day. The machine has replaced muscle as the motive force of industry.

It doesn't require much to lose weight and get into shape. It is as simple as eating fewer calories and doing more work. While this is simple in principle, implementation is more difficult. It is easy to enjoy yourself and pig out on that bag of chips in the evening watching your favorite show on TV. It takes real effort to ride a bike or lift weights. It would tire anyone out to chop wood all day.

Many of the foods we eat are dense with calories. Sugar and other carbohydrates are packed with four Calories per gram. What nutritionists call a Calorie is actually 1000 calories to a physicist or chemist. One small calorie is enough energy to raise the temperature of one gram of water one degree Celsius. One gram of sugar, if burned, will raise the temperature of 1.7 ounces of water from room temperature to boiling.

Protein has about the same caloric content as carbohydrates at four Calories per gram. Protein is composed of linked amino acids and provides the building blocks out of which muscle and other body tissues are made. In the absence of enough carbohydrates the body can convert protein into sugar to fuel metabolism.

Muscles and the brain require glucose, a simple sugar, to provide the energy for their operation. When the body has too much glucose, like after eating a quart of ice cream, insulin is released by the pancreas and glucose is linked into fat molecules, which the body stores for later use. If you are overweight and out of shape it is because your body has stored more fat than it will probably ever need.

Fat is the most energy dense of all the nutrients at about nine Calories per gram. That means a pound of fat has about 4000 calories. A single pound of fat has enough energy to keep a person going for two days. Fat is an efficient means of storing food energy, but it serves few other purposes. A layer of fat keeps arctic animals warm and provides them fuel for motion when food is scarce. In excess, fat is dead weight that slows people down.

Fat is also a necessary nutrient. The brain is actually about 60 percent fat, which serves as the insulator of nerve cells. Certain fats, such as the omega 3 fatty acids, are essential in the diet. Fats also taste good, and as anyone who has watched cooking shows on TV knows, they are incorporated into many prepared foods from crackers to cookies.

The main reason people gain weight is because their energy balance is off. They consume more Calories than they expend on work or keeping warm. The body has its own intelligence and evolved to stay alive. That means any extra food energy consumed will be stored for lean times. The problem is society has advanced faster than biology. For most people in the developed world there just are no lean times. Fat reserves build up to the point that it takes more energy to sustain the larger body and an equilibrium is eventually reached.

If body fat percentage rises above 30 percent a person is usually considered obese and will have health problems. Healthy body fat levels for women are approximately 20 to 30 percent, and for men, 10 to 20 percent. Fat levels are not the only thing to consider when thinking about body composition. Muscle is very important, as it provides motive force for the body. Bone is the framework on which the muscle acts.

Muscle is composed of various proteins and consists of bundles of fibers that contract in length to produce force. Muscle uses glucose for fuel and stores some locally as glycogen. In the body, carbohydrates and fats are the fuel and protein is the steel from which the engine of muscle is made. If you want to burn more fuel you need a bigger engine, and you need to run that engine, not leave it idling at some desk.

A big part of getting into better shape is increasing the total mass of muscles in your body. Muscles consume energy, even at rest, and the more you have, the more you will need to eat to maintain a given body weight. The body knows that muscles are hungry. It will try to get by with the least amount of them necessary, all in the interest of prolonging life in the event of a shortage of food.

The body must be tricked into putting on extra muscle. The trick you need to use is not some steroid, it is far simpler. If you use muscle and tire yourself out on work or exercise, the body will say: "Damn, I guess we need more muscle to do the job." Work and exercise is the stimulus that causes the body to grow muscle when enough of the right nutrients like protein are present in the diet. The key to doing more work and growing stronger is nothing less than the mind.

You can't just think about something and expect it to happen. There is another step to the process. You have to take action on your thoughts. If you sit back at your desk and say "I really need to do some bench presses" it accomplishes nothing. You have to get off your ass and lift those weights. You may need to go shopping and buy the weights. You may need to clear space in the basement for the weight bench. You may need to put on your workout clothes, go down in the basement, set up the weight bench and get into position. It is actually doing the lift, telling your muscles to contract, repeating the lift until you are worn out and doing the work that gets results.

Losing weight and getting into shape are not things you do once and then go back to your old ways. You must change your lifestyle in a permanent way. If you go back to eating more sweet, fatty foods and sitting around all day your body will say "fine, I like this too" and will start storing fat again and losing muscle. You must make the decision to do the work and control the urge to overeat. The human body evolved to cope with an extremely harsh environment. Food was not available without physical labor or on a consistent basis. If you want to look good and maintain health you must limit intake of food, eat good foods and use the muscles you have.

Cold and Snow

2012-02-11T09:43:00.000-05:00

It snowed a couple inches last night. It's ten degrees outside this morning. I am sitting in my room sipping a diet ginger ale and wearing a warm flannel shirt. The sun is out behind a thin layer of clouds. I am thinking of what to do with my time and my future this morning.

I am thinking about writing a book actually. I am thinking of writing a book on how to lose weight. I have read several books on the subject and some of those just have bad information. You don't eat a decent diet for six days out of the week, then pig out on the seventh. You don't eat ice cream and brownies if you want to lose weight. I think I have dropped about another pound in the last few days. I really don't want to be tied to any job or career that isn't my own business. Writing is a business, and it's something a single person can do. I have already done a lot of research on the matter.

The thing about any business is it has to be something that solves some other person's problems. There are a lot of people these days who have a problem with being overweight. I have a problem with being overweight. There are many reasons people gain weight. They eat too much and don't get enough activity. They sit in front of a desk all day and a TV all night. The sun is shining in my window. It is cold outside today and I am not about to go anywhere. I have things to do even though it's Saturday.

This is my own freakish journal. I have no idea why anyone aside from myself reads this stuff I write here. I am not famous. If I write a book and it becomes popular I could become famous. Then my art might sell. People will invite me on TV shows and interview me for newspaper articles. I'm not holding my breath until any of that happens. I have to make the commitment to do something every day, and the first thing I have to do is get a notebook and start doing some research for my book. I already have a publisher lined up and a means of distribution. It's only a question of doing some work and some thinking.

Traffic

2012-02-10T15:01:00.000-05:00

I just got back from picking up my meds and some groceries. There was a lot of traffic on the freeway today. I can't imagine having to drive for hours going back and forth to a job. I am going to set something up at home here to make a living. I am living now, so anything more is just frosting on the cake. My Dad needs something to keep him busy as well. He gets grouchy sitting around all day reading his email. Today he was reading 9-11 conspiracy theory websites. There have to be better ways to spend your time.

I am starting to look a little better after a month of exercise and watching what I eat. I didn't do much reading today in books. I am taking today to look things up on the net. I have to learn to be more productive with my time. I saw something interesting today in the parking lot at the store. It was a pickup with a snow blade. The snow blade said "BOSS" and it just spoke to me. That's what I want to be, the boss, not the worker drone from sector 7G like Homer Simpson.

Here's what I know about business in a nutshell. You need something to sell. It can be a physical object or some kind of service. You need a customer to buy what you're selling. You need to keep track of the money that changes hands and pay your taxes. To effect the sale you may need to secure the services of shipping companies. You may need to pay payment processor fees. If you have a lot of work you will need to have employees. If you do anything dangerous you will need to have insurance. You may need a lawyer to look over contracts. Business is like setting up a machine. I have read a lot of books on business and marketing. Business books are pretty boring and repetitious. We have computers now to do annoying things like tabulate columns of numbers. I am thinking up something to make the world a better place, at least for my own family.

I have a lot of things I could in theory sell. I have books I have read that I have no desire to read again. I have books I have not read that I will probably never read. I have art I have done that could be sold. I have games I bought years ago that somebody somewhere might want to buy. I have musical instruments. I have skills at solving annoying computer problems. I have skills at solving physics problems. I have the ability to stack and haul firewood. I can drive a snowplow, but it hasn't snowed much this year and I hope it won't. I could buy a hand powered lawn mower and offer green lawn care services and get into shape at the same time. I am a decent driver. I could study bicycle repair and become a bicycle repairman. I might even remember some math and physics. There are a lot of things I could be doing.

I started reading a book on content this morning. I don't agree that content should be like the plot of some fictional story where some problem happens and people solve it. Fiction annoys me. I don't like reading about what some imaginary person does and how they have these imaginary problems and then they find the answer and live happily ever after. I don't even like books where people tell true stories about what they do and how they find an answer to their problems. I hate parables, and all these stories are parables. Just say what you have to say and let me get on with my own life. Don't get me involved in some drama about how you changed your life.

I should get my shit together and write a book on something. That might involve doing some research. I have done a lot of research on how to get into shape. Some years ago I went from 240 pounds to 170 in like 6 months. I did it all by simply limiting calories to 1500 a day. I read a lot of labels. I added them all up every day. I ate lousy packaged foods like chips and candy. I quit drinking regular pop and drank diet. Back then I didn't do much exercise. Even with exercise now I am not losing weight at a great rate. There are a lot of books on how to lose weight. I have read a lot of them from the library. I think I could do a better job of writing a book on that than the ones that are out there. I have to get results for myself before I write any books.

Wood Rack

2012-02-10T12:09:00.000-05:00

I got a slight workout in the cold today. The wood rack was empty so I got on my boots, hat, gloves and jacket and went out to the barn. I hauled three wheelbarrows of wood out to the front of the house and stacked it on the rack. Then I split up two buckets of wood to start fires with and hauled that up to the house. The long and the short of it is I worked for 35 minutes out in the cold picking things up and putting them down again. From where I sit that counts as exercise and a workout, and I managed to get some actual work done at the same time.

I have to head into town again today and pick up a prescription this afternoon. I haven't heard from the two random persons I emailed yesterday about their projects they listed on craigslist, but then I wasn't really expecting any answers. I started reading a book on content this morning but it states fairly obvious things. I have some research to do this afternoon but no major projects. It's supposed to snow a bit today and we've already had a dusting. There is a cold front coming through. Perhaps it will be warm again some time soon. Now it is time for lunch.

Busy Day in IT

2012-02-09T19:19:00.000-05:00

Dad had some problems with his computer this morning. I spent about an hour removing spyware and registry errors, then got his media player to work. It was a different morning for me. I actually enjoyed working with computers for a change. I spend all day reading stuff and writing on my blogs. May as well do something useful.

I went to the book store again today. I looked for books on how to do computer service work or how to start a business doing computer service work. Aside from some expensive books on A+ certification, they had nothing. Most of the problems with computers you run into are software related, and A+ is a hardware certification. I like hardware as much as anyone, but once you have something that works you really don't have to do much work on it unless it breaks.

I had oatmeal and hard boiled eggs for breakfast. I had a bratwurst and beans for lunch. I had a hotdog and beans and corn for dinner. I am trying to eat more fiber. I did a bit of walking today but nothing too strenuous. I did not lift weights today. I am not sore from doing bench presses yesterday. I am trying to watch what I eat more these days. I am feeling better after being worn out earlier this week.

Tonight I looked through craigslist for computer and writing gigs. I sent an email to somebody who is looking for somebody to convert his Flash website to HTML. I sent him a link to a program that does that function for free. If I was a bit more ambitious I would have downloaded the program myself and taken his $250 that he offered and converted the site myself. Most of the computer gigs on craigslist are similar to this, they want somebody to program some kind of shit. There seem to be a lot of people looking for cheap web programming. I kind of doubt I will hear back from this person, but it cost me nothing to send an email and took less than five minutes to find a possible solution to his problem.

It's cold again today and we'll get a little snow tomorrow. I am sick of winter. The sun was shining today at least. I like the sun. I think I was a lizard in a previous life, if I believed in that shit, and I don't. It would be nice to lie on a beach and bask in the sun. Maybe I should just break down and learn some web programming. All this reading about getting into shape and running a business is getting me nowhere. What I should be reading about are skills people are looking for, like programming websites and doing stuff with computers, like making them work properly when they don't.

Bench Presses

2012-02-08T14:50:00.000-05:00

I went down to the basement today and got out the barbells. I set up the weight bench and did five sets of ten reps of 50 pound bench presses. I felt them in my triceps and chest. I haven't used the barbells in a couple months. Last time I used them they made me sore. 50 pounds isn't a lot of weight to be bench pressing. A noob is supposed to be doing 135 at the beginning. I don't even have that many plates for my barbells. I think I have 120 total on those things.

I took a half hour walk out in the cold this morning before lunch. The cats were lurking around me. I wore my hiking boots and they are getting broken in better. I wore them out to the store when I went shopping after lunch. I noticed that all the girls in the book store were sending messages on their iPhones. The next advance in technology will be if you feel like talking to somebody you say hello to the person next to you.

I had a mushroom omelette for breakfast and some beans. I had a mess of chili for lunch. We are having bratwurst, cauliflower and potatoes for dinner. Last night I baked some pecans and salted them. I ground the salt myself in my mortar and pestle. I had about half a peach and pear for a snack today. My digestive system is working well today. All that damned fiber is good for you it seems.

I haven't danced around to any techno jams in a while now. I haven't felt very musical lately. I have been reading through books on how to lose weight and get into shape. I am almost done with the alpha male book I got from the library yesterday. I don't follow orders that well. You can't just give me a long spiel of what I have to do and expect me to follow along. Being a leader means making your own path in the world. I got off my ass this morning and did some light activity. I even carried a 40 pound TV down in the basement to get it out of the way. I've been stuck in a rut of sitting in this room reading and it has to change. I need to find things to do and do them.

Tomorrow I get to haul wood for the wood rack out front. It's cold outside today but I saw some dude riding a mountain bike on the road out front. He was kicking ass up a hill. I read through this book on electric bicycles at the book store today. This guy was thin and all dressed in bike clothes as if he was in a race. When I go out on my bike in winter I wear boots, a leather jacket, gloves and a warm hat. If it's really cold I put on long underwear under my blue jeans. It's just too cold to ride today. I took a hike around the garden a dozen times or so and now I'm kicking back and relaxing.

Alpha

2012-02-07T19:59:00.001-05:00

I got some book on how to become an alpha male in like ten weeks. I don't know if reading this is going to help me, but parts of it are interesting. I worked on getting my hiking boots in shape today by wearing them for three or four hours. Some boots you have to break in, they just don't fit right at first. The boot has to conform to the shape of your foot, and boots are made of tougher stuff than shoes. I'll wear them for a while tomorrow as well and see about getting the things into better condition.

I did my second set of 30 situps tonight. I am doing my best to get more activity in my life. I should look for a job where I swing a hammer all day or something. I tried to eat healthy today. I had a lot of protein and a couple servings of the beans I cooked up yesterday. Beans are supposed to be good for you if you want to lose weight. They are full of fiber and a bit of protein. I still have to get a bit of fruit and some more water. If there's anything as boring as eating healthy food it has to be writing about eating healthy food. Oh well, you got to have some hobbies, and writing is as good as any of them. I should make one of those medieval human-powered grain mill things where you walk endlessly in a squirrel cage. That would get me into shape and I could sell the ground grain or seeds and make a profit from my labor.

Books, Weights and Walking

2012-02-07T16:46:00.000-05:00

This morning I lifted weights. I got in a good workout with dumbbells and went for about 20 minutes lifting things up and putting them down again. After lunch I went to the library and got some books and videos. This afternoon I put on my hiking boots and took a walk around the garden a few times. It is cold today.

I had oatmeal for breakfast, coffee, an asparagus and mushroom omelette and chili for lunch. I am grilling some lean round steaks for dinner. I read the beginning of a book on how to become an alpha male. I don't know where some people get their ideas for books. It's interesting but obvious. The bottom line is you need more testosterone.

I just did 30 situps. I got all dressed up today in a good shirt and new jeans. I didn't meet any people today, but I talked to the librarian for a minute or so. It's supposed to get colder outside for the rest of the week. Cold is supposed to be good for draining the calories out of your body. I am trying to get more fiber in my diet. I am giving the eating beans advice a try.

I am feeling more energetic for the last couple days. I need something active to do for a hobby. I am thinking about getting back into the hiking thing I tried to get into before it turned cold. I don't know how much progress I have made in the last month with my body, but I think I look a bit better than when I started.

Reading

2012-02-06T18:33:00.000-05:00

I checked some books out of the library this morning. Today I sat there for a while and looked through a magazine called Men's Fitness. Magazines are nothing but advertisements for the most part. I got nothing from reading that one aside from looking at some pictures of good looking women on some of the pages. I got a book on how to boost my energy levels and one on how to lose body fat. I also got two books on fungi to read through when I'm bored.

I had oatmeal, milk, coffee, a chicken sandwich and some chili that I made from scratch tonight. I also had a couple prunes and about half a pear. I burned my mouth on the chili and lost a patch of skin from my palate. I really have to learn to let things cool to a reasonable temperature before I scarf them down.

I haven't done much exercise today. I did 30 situps this morning after getting back from the library. I walked around the house for 15 minutes wearing my 22 pound weight vest. I swear, wearing one of those things makes you look like a suicide bomber. Still, it took some effort and I didn't strain myself. I think I have to hit the barbells downstairs one of these days soon. It's been a while since I threw those things around and used the weight bench down there. My fingers are already sore from typing. Looks like I'll never make it as a writer.

Ride in the Cold

2012-02-05T13:42:00.000-05:00

I went out and gassed up the car. I stopped in the book store and looked for books on computers and electronics, but saw nothing I wanted. I got some herbal supplements at Whole Foods. It was sunny, though cold, and I had a nice drive. In the car I listened to the radio. There were a lot of people out shopping this morning. I was surprised to see the book store so crowded. It is the weekend and I suppose other people have the same ideas of places to go.

Mom and Dad are making dinner today. I cooked up some eggs for breakfast. I am going to listen to the radio and read stuff on the net for a while. I am not into doing a lot of exercise today. It's a day to take it easy. I am going to have to find some way of getting rid of some of the old electronics in this house. Perhaps I can sell all this junk to somebody. Perhaps I will be lucky to give it all away to some recycling operation. In the old days I would take the things apart and scavenge parts. I even had a job once where they told me to take apart junk units to get parts to fix customers broken items. Some of the people I used to work for were crooked as hell.

Dad has a problem with his arm today. Mom had a root canal yesterday. I am feeling tired and worn out. I am feeling better now actually. I saw some seriously overweight persons at the book store this morning. At least I am not that far gone. I can still see my shoes when I look down. I don't know why so many people are overweight. I think it has a lot to do with a society that sells them shit like comfort food. You get comfort from an easy chair or a warm blanket, not food. You get fulfillment from relating to people, not gobbling sugar and grease. The world is a messed up place when businesses make money selling excess calories to obese individuals.

I really shouldn't complain about the cold weather or my own problems so much. It's pointless to complain to myself. There are a lot of things I could be doing in this world to make it a better place. If something bothers you, do something to change it. It makes no sense that some people in the world suffer from having too much food, and some suffer from having not enough. It would make more sense if everyone had the right amount. The problem is there is this shit called money that dictates how things get passed out in this world. You got more money, you get more shit. Money isn't distributed based on time or skill. It varies by location and a lot has to do with luck. Most of the money in the world is created out of thin air by banks and governments. I don't even begin to know everything that's wrong with capitalism. Communism is even worse because it amounts to dictatorship. They should just give stuff away like I do.

You can rant and rave on a blog. Nothing I say here will in any way change the world at large. It might just change my world. I might end up kicking myself in the ass to the point where I change my situation. I am trying to change my body here, but I really want to change myself. While I was out driving I thought about little four wheel drive tuner cars like the Nissan Skyline. They don't even sell that car in America. I have driven them in video games. I have driven a lot of cars in video games I will probably never get to drive in real life. Video games let you do lots of things you can't do in your life. I am thinking about doing something in my real life. I am thinking about getting some friends. I don't know how, but I will try something. There has to be a way to find happiness in this modern world.

No Motivation

2012-02-05T11:17:00.000-05:00

I am sitting in my room staring at the computer screen. The sun is out this morning but it is cold again. I got no motivation today. I watched exercise videos for a while this morning trying to get fired up. My bellyfat is mocking me this morning. I looked up weight loss supplements on the net and all I found was caffeine and green tea extract. They took all the other things off the market years ago. No more ephedra or phenylpropanolamine unless you buy the latter for your dog from a pet med supply place. I used to take that stuff for my allergies. Now I take nothing for my allergies because antihistamines make me even more lethargic.

I have no idea what I want to do today. I had oatmeal, eggs and some lite bologna for breakfast. I drank way too many cups of coffee. I watched TV for a while. I haven't put in any music yet. It is going to be a quiet day. I want to go to the beach and lay in the sun. I might go to the library this afternoon or out shopping for a while. I don't feel like sitting in this room staring at a computer all day or reading books. I want to do something but I don't know what to do. I want it to be warm again so I can ride my bike without getting stabbing pains in my ears from the cold like last time I rode. I need something tropical to brighten my day.

I just did 30 situps. That seemed to pump me up a bit. I am sick of being overweight and out of shape. I am sick of being on meds that make me sleepy and tired all the time. I am sick of being alone all the time. I am sick of typing endlessly on this blog for no damned reason. I want to be a big ripped freak of a man with a lot of energy and more friends than I know what to do with. It's not going to happen from doing a few lousy situps and watching what I eat. I have to make some changes in my life, and the first is to get out of this house and do something.

Quiet Day

2012-02-04T18:58:00.001-05:00

It's been a quiet afternoon after running out of steam this morning lifting weights. I haven't had a lot of food today. I am not hungry tonight but will probably have some nuts and a couple tangerines for a snack. The new TV is working well and I am about to go watch some DVD shows about nature. This journal is mainly to keep me working toward my goals of getting into shape and improving my life. I had a hard time with exercise today and had very low energy, but things will get better. It was a nice day as far as the weather went and I managed to get a lot of things done despite feeling worn out.

Taking it Easy

2012-02-04T15:30:00.000-05:00

I set up a new TV this afternoon. Now we have HD and some more digital channels. Dad has been wanting to get a new set for the past six months and I checked out a few of them last night on the net. He got a nice one and picked it up today at lunch time. I got to unpack it, screw it together, screw it down to the table and figure out how to set the channels. It's a nice unit and looks like it will work well.

I read about coconut oil today. It's supposed to cure everything and boost your metabolism. I really don't know about that. It sounds like hype to me. Some of the sites I was reading sell coconut oil, so I really don't trust what they say. I had a small lunch and snacked on half a dozen gumdrops. It's a nice sunny afternoon and I took a walk with Mom and Dad after the TV was all set up and programmed.

I am feeling better this afternoon after wearing myself out this morning. I didn't get the way I am overnight and it's going to take a lot of time to get back into shape. I have to work on things a little every day and gradually increase my activity level. When the weather gets warmer it will be easier to take rides on my bike and go for walks in the park. I haven't been inactive today, but I need to keep moving if I want to get into shape. Sitting still all day isn't going to get me where I want to go.

Pumping Iron

2012-02-04T11:35:00.000-05:00

I have had a morning of exercise. I marched in place to the TV infomercials this morning. I swung hand weights around to house music after breakfast. Now I am in the middle of doing my dumbbell exercises listening to The Stooges Funhouse album. I am just pushing myself this morning.

I woke up early this morning. I went to bed early last night. It was dark when I got going today. The sun is shining now. It's almost time to lift things up and put them down again. I am running on two fried eggs and a small slice of bread this morning. I had way too much coffee this morning. I am thinking of quitting that entirely. Caffeine just simulates stress. Life already has enough stress.

I just cranked out the last set of my dumbbell exercises. Them fuckers wore me out this morning. I am trying to limit the carbs in my diet so I burn up some of this body fat. You do that and it slows your shit right down. I am not jumping around with energy today. Right now I am so uncoordinated from the effort of lifting weights I can barely type.

I feel like I destroyed something in myself this morning. I got no sharp pains or anything, but damn, I'm tired after doing my lame ass 20 pound dumbbell lifts. I think it's my muscles ran out of glucose and I was running on lactate from the burn I still have. I have to fuel up proper in the morning from now on with at least a bowl of oatmeal. Calorie restriction sucks but I can not lose weight eating like the other people in this house. I packed on five pounds over the month of December, which is why I started trying to lose weight.

I just ate a clementine and I'm feeling it coursing through my veins. I have been trying to eliminate the sugar from my diet, but man, it's impossible. Everything has sugar in it these days. Bread has sugar in it. Baked beans are full of sugar. Cake is half sugar. If it doesn't have sugar it's full of grease like potato chips. I think I've drunk about half a gallon of water and coffee this morning because my weight is up four pounds from when I got up this morning. I did the flax seeds this morning with some milk but they gave me gas and some discomfort. Getting in shape seems fucking impossible.

I have to do some reading this morning on a sane way to lose weight when the cards are stacked against you. The cards are definitely stacked against me here. I am on a medication that causes weight gain. My thyroid has been killed by radiation and I am on thyroid hormone. My lifestyle involves sitting around the house all day reading and then in the evening watching TV. In my spare time I cook food and clean up the house. I went for a short walk yesterday, but it was cold and I didn't go far. I have been moving around to music in the morning and swinging weights around but it looks like I'm getting nowhere fast. At least I am not gaining weight like I was a month ago. I haven't had ice cream in a month and the only treat I had was birthday cake. I am sick of feeling like shit and being turned into a human blimp by doctors.

Cold

2012-02-03T19:32:00.000-05:00

I am cold in this room. The heat duct is blowing cold air at me. I was cold when I went to the park this afternoon and walked. It's going to be cold tomorrow morning. It was cold when I went out to feed the cat twice. Winter is a bitch.

I just did my 30 situps tonight. That warmed me up a little. This blog got 12 page views yesterday. 12 random visitors reading my journal. They must be bored out of their skulls to read my journal. I'm really not that interesting. I am working on becoming more interesting. I am reading different things on the net. My fingers are still sore from playing guitar yesterday. No guitar today until the fingers feel better. The body takes time to adapt to new stresses.

I haven't played games in a long time. There are games I'd like to play, but they don't involve computers directly. I need to find a girlfriend at least. Never mind I have no friends. The only people I meet are people selling me things at the stores I go to now and then. That's no way to live. Females want guys who have jobs and who have their own places. I have neither so it's little wonder I have no girl. I am pathetic. I need to change my life. There is no reason to live this way.

I moved around to music this morning. I went for a cold walk at the park after lunch. I did situps this evening. I sat around and looked at the Internet all afternoon. Now I am going to sit around and watch TV for the next two and a half hours. Why am I wasting all my time? I should be doing something to make my life better. I should not be sitting on my ass all day dreaming or reading the same shit over and over again. There has to be some way to break out of the cage and live like a free man.

Frosty Morning

2012-02-03T11:19:00.000-05:00

It's cold this morning but it's supposed to warm up later. I had a good breakfast and things are working out well for me today. I don't know if it's the flax seed or what but I had no problems this morning. I took another dose after breakfast. I got the techno music going this morning and did some easy floor type exercises like walking and swinging some light weights around. This kind of stuff seems to get me going in the morning. It would be cool if I had something active to do during the day. I am going to have to look around and see what I can do about getting some activity.

I wasted an hour or more this morning watching idiots on TV. I really have to change my morning activities. It is totally pointless to watch the weather and the news in the morning. The only reason I do this is to waste time before breakfast. I have to wait an hour before I eat after taking the thyroid hormones. What I should be doing is some morning exercise or playing my guitar. I can still feel the guitar strings on the fingers of my left hand this morning.

I am thinking about this blog. It's pointless. It's going to take me a lot of time to get into better shape. I gotta keep thinking I am getting better every day. There is nobody I can work out with around here. I have to take a break from the weights again today, but I can do a few situps. The birthday cake is gone so there is no reason I have to eat sugar today. I should go on a hike today or something. That might involve driving somewhere. I am trying to exercise because there is really nothing else I can do. I could spend all day dancing to music in this room. I can't dance for shit. My energy level is very low. You cut calories out of your diet and your body wants to hoard it's fat reserves. I got a belly full of high test fuel and my stupid body won't use it. This ain't the stone age where you have to survive for weeks without food.

I just got done slicing a pound slab of butter in half for Mom. I can't imagine what 60 pounds of that shit looks like, and that's about what I am carrying around on my body. I know it's very tiring to walk around in a 25 pound weight vest. You know, they play some real shit music on the radio. I put in some Grateful Dead just to have something to listen to that's not aggravating.

I am trying to think of a plan for my life. The first thing is to get into shape. The next thing is to find some way to make money. You need money in this stupid world. They don't just give stuff away for free. People will give you money, but only if you have something they want. All the poor people in the world end up with nothing. Rich bastards have more than they need. Governments spend money they don't have on killing people. People starve to death while farmers get paid to plow under their crops. Instead of healthy food they feed you grease and sugar. The world is a fucked up place.

All this writing I've done here and elsewhere amounts to nothing. The spam robots who read my blogs are only looking for a place to post links to their scam websites. This is nothing but a record of a small part of my life. I will probably never become famous. There are probably billions of blogs nobody reads. This is just another way to sit on my ass and waste time. What was I thinking, that a person could make a living writing? That's like getting paid to talk or tell jokes. Sure, it happens for some people, but it's very unlikely. You may as well buy lottery tickets if you want to make money writing, because your chances are about the same.

Guitar

2012-02-02T19:31:00.000-05:00

I busted out my steel acoustic guitar tonight and played scales and chords for a while. I haven't played my guitar in a long time. It didn't sound bad, almost musical. My fingers hurt from pressing down on the strings. I think I am going to have to get some ultra light gauge strings for that instrument or something. It felt good to tune up and play some riffs.

I spent the better part of the evening reading about how to sell stuff online. I have to do some thinking about this concept. I have some stuff that could be sold, like books I've already read. I also could look into selling things for other people. I also could look into the concept of buying things for a low price and selling them for a high price. Arbitrage is not just for stock traders. In any case, it's time to take a break and watch some stuff on the tube. I have wasted most of the day reading things online and have not even played any games. I played my guitar. I suppose that counts for something.

New Supplement

2012-02-02T17:14:00.000-05:00

I bought a bag of ground flax seeds from Whole Foods this afternoon. It's supposed to keep you regular. I have never had much luck with fiber. I eat oatmeal most mornings, but that really doesn't help much. I was reading about flax seed and hemp seed online this morning. Supposedly they help clear you out. I mixed up a dose this afternoon with a cup of milk in the blender. It may be a few days before I see any results. My guts were all nice and cleared out a few days ago and now everything has slowed down again. I take acidophilus and eat some fruit during the day but nothing really seems to help much. Hopefully this flax will fix up my shit.

It's clear and chilly outside this evening. I now have five different cats lurking around outside. I swear people must just drop them off on the road out front and expect people to feed them or the cat to fend for itself. None of them are overly friendly. I saw another one tonight when I took the dinner leftovers out to the cat bowl. It almost looked like a Russian Blue. I got me some damned expensive stray cats around here.

I did my aerobic workout this morning and rearranged the room a bit so I can walk here. I did some situps this morning as well. I went out and shopped for supplements. I am taking a break from lifting weights today so my muscles can grow. I spent the afternoon sitting at my computer and reading. I've got some more reading to do this evening. It would be nice if I had a friend around here to do some activities with. I know none of my old friends are into anything healthy like exercise. The only exercise any of them did was 40 ounce curls.

Morning Exercise

2012-02-02T11:08:00.002-05:00

I put in a trance CD this morning and bopped around the bedroom with some light hand weights to the music. I moved my little table out of the center of the floor so it is easier to walk around in this room. I didn't work up a sweat, but I was worn out after moving in time to the music. I took a couple breaks to swiffer the floor in here and to shave. After I finished with the trance music I cranked out 30 situps. It is an off day for lifting weights as I lifted for three days in a row. My muscles are a bit sore, but nothing bad.

It's 11:00 AM already. I have no idea what I am going to do with the day. I am noticing some changes in how I look when I look in the mirror. I have to continue with this and step up the activity if I ever want to get in shape again. I rode my bike four miles yesterday. It's colder outside today, but the sun is supposed to come out later. I still have this annoying spare tire around my belly. It's hard to stay on any kind of diet in this house. I am carrying around something like 60 pounds of fat thanks to my medications, too much food, and inactivity. I need to find something active I can do that's not as dangerous as riding a bike on the road. Perhaps riding a bike at the park is something to look into.

Nice Day

2012-02-01T14:53:00.000-05:00

I did dumbbell lifts again this morning and got in a good workout. After that I went to the library and checked out some Asian martial arts movies and a couple books on business. The weather was dry this afternoon and about 45 so I got out the bike and rode up to Ann Arbor road and back, about four miles total. My ears got a bit cold and it was a tiring half hour workout, but it felt good to be doing some exercise. I am back to watching what I eat today after feasting yesterday on my birthday.

I have been thinking about this blog a bit today. There have been ten page views here today so far. If I had a million times that, advertising might pay off. I am trying to think up some kind of business. I want to do something for myself instead of working at some job. I really don't know what to do. I have a lot of books I could sell, if I could figure out how to sell them. I have paintings, but nobody buys art from nobodies like me. I have video games, but I want to keep those. I know where to get cheap books to sell, but they are cheap for a reason, nobody wants them. You have to sell something people want.

I am going to make some coffee and think about what to have for dinner. There is some leftover steak in the fridge and some potatoes. I had a turkey sandwich and plain salad for lunch. I had oatmeal for breakfast. I had a piece of angel food cake for a snack before my ride. I could make meal bars and call them breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snack and they would probably sell. Stupid ideas like that make people rich.

Steak Dinner

2012-01-31T18:14:00.000-05:00

I ate a whole T-bone steak for dinner tonight, about half a potato and a big serving of plain salad. Kid Rock is going on the radio now. I went out to the store today, but I wrote about that in the last post. It was a nice day. I lifted weights this morning and did some situps this evening. I am losing a bit of weight it seems. My fingers are sore from typing. Why do I feel the need to write about everything I do. I should do more and write less.

50

2012-01-31T12:25:00.000-05:00

Today is my birthday. I popped in a Stones CD this morning and lifted weights listening to Let It Bleed. I had oatmeal and two boiled eggs for breakfast. After working out I went shopping. I bought a DS game called Jam Session 2 that is supposed to teach you how to play guitar. I need to learn how to play guitar. I have four guitars. I went to Barnes and Noble and bought a book on how to manage pop musicians. I had a dream last night I was hanging out with my friend Rob and we were playing music at some underground club. In the dream I told them they needed a manager, and since I know so much about business it may as well be me. That dream went haywire, but it can't hurt to investigate the possibilities.

I can't believe I'm half a century old today. I guess I am an old man now. I don't feel like an old man. I feel fairly well after doing some exercise this morning. It is a beautiful day outside. It's 50 degrees and the snow is melting. The sun is shining and people seem to be in good spirits today. Some random person in line at the grocery store talked to me for a minute about the weather. The checkout girl gave me change of a 1948 grain of wheat penny. Everyone I talked to was happy. Mom even made me an angel food cake for my birthday. It has been a good day so far.

I am listening to some lame song on the radio now. I got a sound system in this room now. Music gear is expensive. Yesterday I looked at used gear on the Guitar Center website. I can't play loud music in this house. Loud music destroys cheap gear anyway. Eww, they're playing Green Day on the radio. This station plays the same songs over and over again. I remember when they used to play whole albums on the radio at night. The record industry probably put an end to that because people taped the shows off the air. There are a lot of crooks in the music business.

I am going to relax and take it easy on my birthday. I did my strength exercises first thing this morning. Now I am chilling in my room typing my random thoughts. There has to be something to read online somewhere. All these words I write about my life get me nowhere. One day I will read all this stuff, or just end up deleting it like I did two months ago. Oh well, it's something to do.

Chicken Soup

2012-01-30T17:01:00.000-05:00

This morning I did my dumbbell exercises listening to the old Cypress Hill CD. It was a bit of a workout and felt good to be pushing myself to lift some lame 20 pound weights. I didn't make myself sore and got my pulse going. I had salad without dressing for lunch and a snack of an ounce of wasabi cheese.

Mom is having some problems with her teeth and she went to the dentist this morning and is on antibiotics. At about three this afternoon I went into the kitchen and started making some Jewish penicillin, also known as chicken soup. I started with water, bullion cubes, fine dried parsley, celery, onions, garlic, carrots and finally leftover chicken. I added about two teaspoons of olive oil for body and after everything was cooked I put in some rice noodles. The soup turned out very nice and we had a good dinner. I had one bowl of soup which probably amounted to about 300 calories.

I didn't go anywhere today. I played a game on my DS this morning and some Morrowind this afternoon. I haven't really done a lot of reading either today, just some stuff on the net. It's been cold all day. I fed my black cat Sneaky and brought in the mail. This morning I scraped ice off the Jeep for Mom and Dad. I haven't listened to much music today. I searched google for how to find musicians who don't drink alcohol or smoke weed. Google showed me an article about some 125 year old Indian woman who claimed she lived so long because she smoked cannabis every day. The Internet has all kinds of odd stories like that.

I just did 30 situps, 10 more than yesterday. I had to take a break from doing those because I had such DOMS in my abs after doing like 200 of them in 2 days. I suppose I should look into how I can get some walking in. I might go to the park and walk on the paths the next dry day. It shouldn't matter if it's cold. You burn more calories in the cold anyway. I think I am on top of my diet finally here. I have seriously limited sugar and carbohydrates and fats for the last few days. I am starting to see some weight come off. What I want is to lose the excess fat that has built up on my body. If I was 210 pounds of muscle it wouldn't be a problem. It takes time for a body to change composition. The only real way to turn fat into muscle is to lose the fat and then build the muscle. What it amounts to is you have to eat less food and do more work. I have been trying to do that for the last three weeks now but it's going to take a long time to see any real results.

My Pleasant Evening Sleeping

2012-01-30T10:03:00.000-05:00

There was nothing but shit on the radio last night. I ended up turning on WCBN, the college low power station. They lulled me to sleep with random noises. In the middle of the night they played some spoken word shit about alien crystals inside people's brains that crept into my dreams and was quite interesting. Later they played something that was like the most annoying childish music accompanied by the screams of dying rabbits. It woke me up and I lay there in bed for a few minutes listening, hoping the fuckers would just shut the fuck up and play something pleasant like monkeys banging on pots and pans, but no, it went on and on and got worse and worse with the high-pitched screaming. I got up out of bed in the dark and shut the shit off. All the rest of the night I had nightmares about trying to type poetry on an old manual typewriter that was held together with baling wire and falling apart in my hands.

I am listening to the same kind of random shit on the radio now as I type this. I can see why some music never becomes popular. This annoying avant garde noise is not pleasing to the ear. Still, it's something different. This CD player/boom box I fixed last week has a good tuner in it. It has the sensitivity and selectivity to pick up a low power station wedged between two high powered annoying stations with no cross-channel bleed or noise.

I had a wonderful healthy breakfast. A turkey sandwich on one slice of bread. I am guzzling some fresh coffee now. I played some DS games this morning and got a high score in Zen Stones. You know, they're playing some really annoying 1950s rock gloop now that is even more annoying than the screams last night. I don't know what's wrong with the DJs at this station. It's like their mission is to annoy the fuck out of their listeners. I guess they are practicing for jobs in commercial radio. If that's the case they are doing good.

I have to get myself fired up to do some exercise today. I haven't hit the weights in two days. I can't work out to the kind of shit tunes they play on the radio. I am going to have to find some rock to fire me up. I am thinking Pearl Jam or Sisters of Mercy. I don't even want to listen to the shit gospel music they are playing now. I shut the fuckers off. Silence is better than annoyance. You know, if it was a station for mentally ill people to learn how to spin records I might understand, but they are college students and they have no clue about how to program music.

I am grouchy this morning I suppose. I don't imagine anyone who was awakened in the middle of the night by psychotic screams would be overly cheerful. I am giving up on the radio at night. Even the classical stations annoy me by playing opera in the middle of the night when I am trying to sleep. All I can do is program my own music and let the radio play to the poor downtrodden masses who can't afford to buy or borrow good music.

So Tired

2012-01-29T16:55:00.002-05:00

One 20 pound turkey, gone. Five pounds mashed potatoes, gone. Two quarts green beans, gone. A couple quarts of gravy, some salad, two boxes of ice cream sticks, a dozen cinnamon buns, half a bag of potato chips, a few cheese curls, in short a lot of food gone. All this from just one family. I don't understand how people can eat so much food.

Hopefully there's a little coffee left in the pot. I spent the last three hours cooking, carving, serving, cleaning, putting stuff away, taking out garbage. They don't eat like this at home. I've been to their place two or three times for dinner. It's not a good example for me trying to be on a diet. It did make me disgusted with food. I am hiding in my room now. My work is over. I have worked in restaurants and college dorm kitchens, and it's not as hectic as Sunday with my brother's family.

Cold

2012-01-29T14:06:00.001-05:00

It's cold today and snow is falling. According to this book I read the other day you should be cold to lose weight. The theory is your body will make all kinds of heat to stay warm and you will burn up more calories. I have had about 500 or less calories so far today. A big turkey dinner may double that. I haven't really been too hungry for the last few days.

I played games for a little while today. I ran a couple quests in Warcraft. After the second one the game locked up and I had to shut down with program manager and restart to get back to the inn. I played Morrowind for a little while this afternoon in between minding the food in the oven. That game loads fast, plays without glitches and shuts down in like ten seconds. The graphics are also better than Warcraft. It doesn't bother me that it's single player.

I just did 20 situps and had no pain. Today is not a day for exercise. It's a day for work actually. I cook and clean and serve food and generally keep things from getting out of hand in the house. Nobody's here yet, but they should be within the hour. I am listening to the radio today. All I have left to do is make mashed potatoes, gravy, carve a turkey, cook some green beans, then clean up everything.

I prefer the parties I used to have with my friends. We would get a case of beer, sit around drinking and listening to music and talking, then clean up the bottles and take them back for the deposit. This is so much simpler than the whole holiday feast sort of thing, but then, you can't sit around all day drinking beer with your family. It keeps me busy and I can always go in my room and hide when the noise is too much.

Sunday Morning

2012-01-29T09:25:00.001-05:00

I am working on my fourth cup of coffee already today. My radio is haunted. I turned on 89X and it was playing classical music. The station locked onto 88.3 instead of 88.7 and I was picking up WCBN, the university station where I used to hang out. That's just fucking weird.

I am already getting ready for the big social day later. I have the turkey up and am getting ready to put it in the oven. I figure a 20 pound turkey takes five hours to cook in theory. That's only 15 minutes a pound, but the last turkey I cooked fell apart in the oven. In my spare time I am getting started on breakfast.

I am thinking I will spend some time today playing Morrowind. It's a good game, though I make it really easy. The only problem with Morrowind is permadeath. You die and it's game over, go back to the load screen and load your last save game. I guess that's more realistic than being reincarnated every time you get killed.

I got the 89X Timewarp going on the radio now. They play songs from the old days 20 years ago on Sunday morning. It's strange because I can remember when they played these songs in the regular lineup. I am an old man who has listened to the same radio station for a long time.

There's a lot of things to do today but it doesn't bother me. You can't spend your entire life reading or playing games. I like to see my parents get the chance to socialize as well. I usually end up cooking and cleaning and doing dishes for a couple hours when we have company. I can also go in my room and hide and play games when things get too noisy. I suppose I should do some exercise today as well.

Paleolithic Dinner

2012-01-28T19:02:00.000-05:00

I picked up a nice thick porterhouse steak at Kroger this afternoon and fried it up for dinner. It was some tender and tasty Angus meat. I had fries and a tomato sliced with that. That's as close to caveman eating as it gets I suppose. The steak was fairly rare. Wooly Mammoth must have tasted good, they're all gone now.

I played Warcraft for a while this afternoon. Tonight it locked up on me twice while I was doing a quest. It sucks to have to shut a game down with the program manager. Morrowind never locks up on me or lags and is a better game. I may go back to playing that. It's sort of the game that never ends, but that's fine with me.

I have been taking it easy today after yesterday's fun. A purge is never fun but then it's good to get that stuff out of your guts once in a while when the plumbing just isn't working right. The meds I take really get me constipated. They throw off my hormones as well and cause me to gain weight. On the other hand they make it so I can live an almost normal life. It's like making a bargain, you give up something to get something else.

I am listening to some weird Goth club mix CD I bought years ago. There are no commercials on a CD. There are no annoying radio announcers trying to be funny. If you had a radio station like that people would tune out the shit and listen to your station. If I could figure out podcasting I could start my own Internet radio station. The problem is you need to pay royalties to the performers. You can't just broadcast music without the artists getting their share. Perhaps I don't actually know. You'd think musicians would want stations to play their jams.

Not much is happening on this blog lately. I am sitting here sipping a cup of tea. The tea is not very warm. I had a lot of coffee today. I might have had 1100 calories today total so far. I have no idea what I would have for a snack. Ice cream is out because of sugar and fat. Chips are out because of carbs and fat. Fruit is possible, but it's full of sugar. I could roast some nuts, which are also full of fat, but it's supposed to be good fat. I could swill some protein shake, which is full of artificial sweetener. There is nothing healthy to eat for a snack.

The wind blew fairly hard today. It's getting cold outside. I miss the warm weather. I took food out to the cat tonight, and she sneaked by and ate while we were at dinner. My brother and his family are supposed to be coming to dinner tomorrow. I have a 20 pound turkey thawing in the kitchen. It takes two days to thaw a chunk of meat that big, at least I hope it will be thawed. Turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy and green beans. A holiday for no reason in the middle of winter.

Tuesday is my birthday. I am going to be 50 this year. Half a century. I don't feel that old. I don't know if I look that old. I got some grey hair. My beard is going white. I have a beer belly and stooped shoulders. I find it hard to drag my ass out of bed in the morning. I just did 20 situps I was so motivated. I wasted two hours today reading through a book on paleo dieting. I'm sorry, I eat what I want. I don't follow any fucking stupid diet.

It's almost 7:00 PM now. I have accomplished next to nothing today. I helped out my Mom some today. I cooked dinner. I fed the cat. I went shopping. I played games for a while until the game became unstable. I am about to go watch some stupid shit on TV, or maybe I will read for another hour before that. This CD has some lousy jams on it. I think I will put it back on the shelf.

Windy Winter Day

2012-01-28T13:02:00.000-05:00

It's cold today, but above freezing. I spent the morning reading about how to make a website better and how to eat like a caveman. I had oatmeal and eggs for breakfast. I had chicken breast and green beans for lunch. My guts are almost back to normal after yesterday's purge. I feel about the same as yesterday, only less bloated. I lost five pounds purging all that shit out of my system.

The sun is shining this afternoon. It snowed about an inch overnight and this morning. I am sick of winter and it hasn't even been that bad. I went outside today long enough to take out the trash. I did 40 situps yesterday and will probably take today off. I don't much feel like lifting weights yet today. I will probably spend the afternoon playing games or something.

My Wonderful Day

2012-01-27T19:05:00.002-05:00

I had coffee and oatmeal for breakfast. I went to the doctor to have blood drawn for more tests. I came home and read this huge book about hacking your body. I got through the entire book today. Aside from eating and preparing dinner, all I did today was read. I have no idea if I got anything useful from all this reading today, but it passed the time.

Today is an off day for exercise. I have been feeling lethargic lately and haven't been too regular. I mixed up a couple doses of Epsom Salts and flushed out the contents of my intestines. It's a bit of a purge doing it that way but it's also cheap. No $30 colon cleanser kit for me when 15 cents worth of salts do the same thing. I feel a bit better already, though the stuff is still working on me. I don't advise going anywhere when you do something like this, and I might do this twice a year.

All I can say about my weight these days is it fluctuates. I was down to 211 on the scale fully dressed this morning and up to 213 this afternoon after eating nothing but oatmeal, thin tomato soup and a pot and a half of coffee. I drink a lot of water during the day, and a gallon of that weighs 8 pounds or so, not that I drank a gallon, but a quart would be two pounds anyway. I had a couple of salmon patties and an ear of corn for dinner. I also gobbled down four acidophilus capsules after dinner to get my gut bacteria going again after the purge.

There's some wind and snow coming for tomorrow. The afternoon today was fairly nice with a bit of sun. It was warm enough today to melt the little bit of snow that fell last night. It would be nice if winter would just give up this year. It hasn't been bad this time around but I am sick of the cold and dreary days. I can't just pack up and move to Hawaii though because I am a broke ass loser. Someday.

The slow rate of change in my weight is getting me down. I think it was on the way up because my thyroid was very low last time they tested it. That's probably why I gained five pounds in December. At least I am not still gaining weight. Today I restricted calories and I don't feel hungry. I also feel a bit more energetic, but not enough to throw the bike in the truck and go to the park. It's going to have to warm up or at least dry out before I think about doing that. Flushing out the guts today is as close as it came to doing something healthy. I'll see if it makes any difference in the coming weeks.

Library Trips

2012-01-26T17:18:00.000-05:00

I went to two libraries today. I had to renew my library card so I went to that library. I ended up checking out four or five books and three DVDs. I spent the rest of the morning reading for a while. After lunch I went to the other library to take back a bunch of stuff. I checked out three more books from that one.

One of the books I checked out is The 4 Hour Body by Timothy Ferriss. I spent a couple hours reading that one this afternoon. It's a huge book. I don't know how accurate the information in that book is, but the author claims to have researched everything. I'll see if anything in this book helps me lose this 60 pounds of body fat I am carrying around. I could always do curls with the book.

After breakfast this morning I hit the weights. I popped some Jimi Hendrix in the CD player and went through three sets of all my exercises in 15 minutes. I was a bit sore and worn out from that, but it was a good way to start the day. I didn't do much jumping around to music today. I haven't done any situps yet, though I may in a while. I am feeling like a whale with this blubber on my belly.

There were a lot of page views on this blog today. Looks like 16 so far. I think the name change has helped. It would be a good name for a natural bodybuilding supplement company, Freak of Nature. Some bastard has probably already thought of that by now. This is my non-commercial personal journal. I don't even know of that many phytoandrogens I could cap up and sell as plant steroids.

I am going off to read some more of that book after I get done checking my email. No messages from the social network today. Lots of stuff about how I could buy junk from people. Guitar Center even wants to rip me off by buying my old guitars. Sorry, I need those for my rock star career. I figure one of these days I will learn how to play something.

A Busy Day

2012-01-25T22:38:00.000-05:00

It's been a long day. I don't think I've written this much material in a long time. I re-designed the blog and got it looking the way I want. I got a better name, even though it's strange. I don't think I've had so many page views here in a long time, if ever. I think this is something I will work on.

I played Warcraft for a while this evening. I got my little hordie elf some fishing skill. Made a few silvers catching junk. Now I need to go back to questing and fighting monsters. It sucks that you can make more money fishing up junk than you can catching fish. Still, the junk paid for the skill and the rod so I can't complain.

I am listening to some weird Nordic music again tonight. I listened to it all last night when I was sleeping and it crept into my dreams. I almost wish I knew what the words mean, but then, it doesn't matter because it sounds so good.

You have to get rest if you want to grow strong. There are people who sleep four hours a night or less I hear tell. I usually sleep from 11:00 PM to 8:00 AM. I know nine hours is a long time to sleep but it just goes by so fast. I am glad people don't try to page me or call me on the phone in the middle of the night. They would end up not getting through to me. I'm lost in sleep until the morning.

I suppose I should plan the day tomorrow. I think I will exercise again. I will work on this blog some more. I am running out of ideas for my other blogs. Blogs never made me a dime in actuality. I don't do it for the money anyway. It would be nice if I could write stuff here and get paid, but you need thousands of readers for that to work. I don't even have tens of readers. I have one main reader and that is myself. What do I need money for anyway? I already have almost everything I want.

It's been a busy day, as I've said. I am off now to turn off the computer and get some sleep. I have no idea if I am making any real progress on my quest to get into better shape. It's not like I am totally out of shape anyway. I can actually lift a decent amount of weight. I have no trouble carrying bags of bird seed on my shoulders. Lugging wheelbarrows full of firewood doesn't wind me. It would be nice to be in better condition, but I am not crippled so hey, things will only get better as I continue to work.

My Before Picture

2012-01-25T18:52:00.001-05:00

This is a shot I took ten minutes or so ago in my room. It shows the state my body is in right now, more or less. The only processing I did to it was to crop out the background a bit and adjust the white balance. I had to look up how to use the self timer on my camera, it's been so long since I used that mode. I'm not winning any beauty contests with this picture, but that's not what it's for. This is only to show what I'm starting with.

So there I am looking down on all you blog viewers from my blog. It don't get any harsher seeing yourself as others see you. I stopped by Technorati tonight and updated my blog title and description. I'm not keeping a blog on any commercial site any more that doesn't share the profits and throws annoying advertisements everywhere. I can do all that on Blogger and put up my own advertisements if I get popular.

I got the Pink Floyd Wish You Were Here going right now. I'm thinking about doing some Warcraft with the rest of my day. Hell, I've been adding to this blog all day today. I used to write in spiral notebooks at the end of the day and put down all the stuff that happened during the day. I've got a pile of them in the closet here. Probably nothing but mindless drivel about how I went to work and did stuff and talked to people and then what I had for dinner.

I want to look back on this post in a year and see if I've made any progress. I feel I have made some progress already even though I only started on this latest exercise and health kick a week or so ago. Putting this shot in the machine here is a start. I suppose it takes some guts to show any random net surfers how out of shape you are. Then again, they don't have to cut a hole in the wall and bring in a forklift to get me out of the house. I won't be getting on Jerry Springer with my weight problem.

I just did a second set of 20 lame ass situps. I haven't been able to do those for a few days because my abdominal muscles were very sore from last week's overindulgence in situps. You have to give yourself time to heal after injuring the muscle. And with me, my abs probably look like bacon. Too much ice cream and too many potato chips over the last few years. Those are a couple of things that are no longer in my diet.

I think I can do something with this blog. I'm not wasting my time adding content to a service in which I have no stake. Looking at that picture above here I can see I have a long way to go before I am in decent shape. Just looking in a mirror doesn't show all the fat that collects on your frame. Even my face is fat in that picture. It's not the best picture of me around, but it's where I am at today and will inspire me to improve my body and my outlook on life.

Spaghetti

2012-01-25T17:26:00.000-05:00

I had health food for dinner. Hamburger, degreased in a frying pan, fresh canned plum tomatoes, half an onion, heaps of garlic, basil flakes, garlic powder and a pinch of allspice for the sauce along with a can of shrooms. For pasta I cooked up some rice noodles imported from Thailand. International spaghetti.

I had a decent portion of food today. Most of the calories were from protein. I am not a vegetarian. Meat is good for you. Humans only got where they are when they learned to hunt back in the cave man days. It was the search for better ways to kill animals that drove stone age technology. Sure, it's hard on the animals, but so are a lion's jaws on your neck. Life ain't easy.

There are two things you need to do to get into shape: Work out and eat right. Muscle is made of protein, not fat and not sugar. Fat and sugar make fat. You want muscles you have to eat protein. I had a couple eggs this morning along with my oatmeal. Oatmeal is supposed to be good for you. I eat the cheap quick oats without sugar. The only thing I put on it is milk. It's bland, but it's good for you.

When I get around to it I will post a picture of my body here. It's pathetic. My belly hangs out over my belt like I might live on 40s and cheeseburgers. I got fat all over the muscles of my arms and legs. It's not in rolls or anything, but damn, fat don't do nothing but store energy. I don't need to store energy. I get to eat every day. I am guessing ancient people didn't always know where dinner was coming from. If the hunt for food didn't go well you went hungry. In those conditions fat is good, it keeps you alive.

I'm just spouting the obvious information tonight. I've spent all day listening to music and typing on my blog. I got the APC going now, "counting bodies like sheep to the rhythm of the war drums." That would be a good song for playing Warcraft. Endless mindless killing of fake virtual entities. It's good that life isn't like that. I can still taste the basil and garlic from the spaghetti.

I am thinking about what might be a good job to get. I can see myself carrying bricks back and forth all day. I had a job like that once or twice. I was a landscaper and wheeled barrows of dirt and rocks back and forth all day. I used to mix concrete by shovel for foundations and shit. That would fucking wear me out. Now I type shit on my computer nobody reads. Life is so fulfilling.

I checked the stats for this blog on Analytics a few minutes ago. That service is so smart they don't even count the Russian robots. Most of my readers are from the good old USA, one from England and another from India. Shit, people don't even stay long enough to read my posts and can't find the words to even complain about my lousy blog. What the hell are you going to say to somebody writing a journal entry? "I think your portrayal of your life experience misses the mark of what that experience actually was when you experienced it."

I like my new blog name. It describes me better than the old one. I even feel like a freak of nature. Maybe I can make something out of this new persona. "Where'd you hear about that Joe? I don't know, some freak of nature wrote about it on his blog." That fucking makes me laugh. Perhaps I will record here the adventures of my interesting life. Perhaps not. New adventures for sure, but old ones are history. I am listening to Kate Bush now on the CD, The Dreaming.

You know, I don't think anyone has ever left a comment on this blog outside of some idiots trying to post links to porn sites. Maybe I'll write my own comments. Of course that would just be stupid. Why does a journal need comments? I don't know. I've got to see if I can change the title of this blog in Technorati since I did list it there some time ago. It would be interesting to see what my rank on that site does with my new title and everything. Perhaps that's what I'll do now.

Reading About Fitness

2012-01-25T15:15:00.000-05:00

So much crap on the net these days. You look up "lose fat gain muscle" on Google and there are a million sites all trying to sell you some program. I actually learned something from reading through some of this shit. You have to work if you want to gain muscle. You can cut calories and you will lose weight. You will also lose muscle. You can eat more to gain muscle, but if you don't work out you will only gain fat. The key is to keep active and challenge yourself. You lift things up and put them down again.

I have spent probably eight hours reading about fitness in the last week. I am still clueless. What I need to do is stop reading and start doing. All this gloopy knowledge amounts to nothing if you can't use it for anything. It's like when I read about investing in the stock market. I read many books on the subject. It's good for nothing because I don't have millions to buy some stock that is going to increase in value for the long term. I also know how to make nuclear weapons of various sorts due to my degree in physics. That doesn't mean I can get my hands on any plutonium.

Fitness is something you have to think long term about. You can't just exercise for a few days and expect results. I have been at it now for over a week after giving up for like the tenth time in the last twenty years. You have to do something every day. It's a job or a way of life. You get up in the morning and do your aerobics. You eat some breakfast and lift weights. You do it again in the afternoon. You do this every day you are not too sore from doing it the day before. It is the only way. People don't have jobs breaking rocks like they did in the old days. We hire Mexicans to work the fields in this country.

I am sick of reading about how to get into shape. I want results and I want them as soon as possible. If you want results, you have to do the work. If you're going to do the work you have to find some way to enjoy what you're doing. Today I worked out for about an hour. I should work out some more this afternoon. I should stop reading the useless sales pitches for supplements and exercise programs they want subscription fees for and start doing the work. I have the tools. The tools are simple. Shoes, dumbbells, barbells, weight bench, weight vest, ankle weights, basically dead weight. Music is also a tool as it gets me motivated. Reading is fine, but reading the same thing over and over again is pointless.

Drab Winter Day

2012-01-25T13:12:00.000-05:00

It's a flip chill winter bastard of a day, though dry. Clouds block out the sun. I'm sitting in my room typing, listening to a sad song on the portable stereo. It will only be a couple months before the weather warms up. It's been a mild winter so far. I only had to run the plow once so far.

I have some things to do this afternoon. One thing I have been planning to do is play Warcraft again. I did my exercise today and fixed up this blog. I have watched my diet and haven't had any junk food. I made a chicken white meat sandwich for lunch. We have a fire going in the wood stove and some things to do around the house today.

I got some weird club mix CD going now that I vaguely remember buying at the Necto a long time ago. I have no idea why I'm writing in my journal. That's what a journal is for I suppose. Your little friend you can write in when you have nothing else to do. I got a happy email this afternoon. Kristen liked a comment I left on her Facebook. Most of the people who I am friends with on Facebook I don't remember or didn't talk to when I was in school with them.

I am wondering where my black cat has gone to. I put food out for her yesterday and it looked like she showed up just at sundown. I named her Sneaky. It took about five months of feeding her every day, but now she likes me and rubs on my legs when I take food out to her. She comes up by the house when she wants something. I only pet her when I have gloves on now, because she likes to scratch.

I suppose there's nothing left to do here today. I changed my blog today. I need to do something about putting up some useful content. Useful to me at least. I am going to make something of my life instead of just existing. It's hard when you are so out of it for so long to get active. For years I rode my bike everywhere. I used to buy 40s at the party stores and pound them for fuel. My bike ran on beer. Probably not the best way to get in shape, but I had no real health problems in those days. Now I drink water and coffee and tea. It's hard to count calories when you don't eat packaged food.

I weigh myself at various times throughout the day. My weight varies by three or four pounds sometimes. Dressed and in my shoes before breakfast I weighed 212. After breakfast and coffee I weighed 215. There is no way a bowl of oatmeal, a cup of milk, and a cup and a half of coffee weigh three pounds. It's a digital scale too. It's not like I put the dumbbells in my pockets after I worked out either. Perhaps it's a gravity warp effect.

I don't know what I'm going to do this afternoon. Perhaps I will do another workout with dumbbells. Perhaps I will do some situps. Perhaps I will sit around and play games. My game blog is going nowhere now. It was an experiment. The only readers I had there were Russian spammers robots. I don't do a lot of promotion on this blog. What kind of promotion could I do anyway. Hey, come read my long rambling personal journal. That even sounds stupid. I am listening to the industrial jams right now and typing. My mind is just running on autopilot. I should do some exercise and wrack myself up.

Chrome Dumbbells

2012-01-25T11:58:00.000-05:00

I decided to change the name of my journal to Freak of Nature. I kept the theme because I did not want to go and re-install tracking code on another template. I changed the color scheme to a high energy red as opposed to the watery blue. And I found this nice background picture of chrome dumbbells that will go with my new theme of changing my body through diet and exercise. I don't know why it's taken me so long to set this thing up to more precisely convey my personality.

I have a BodyBlog on bodybuilding.com, but man, that site tries to sell you stuff all the time and nags you to do things like put up pictures all the time. When I get to looking better I will add pictures. There's a picture of my face in the Gravatar icon. I am going to keep my journal here, and if things look like they are going to get popular I will put up my own advertisements. I'm writing for myself, which is a step up from pimping for the supplement dealers.

Another reason I am turning this blog into my workout journal is that other site censors what you write. If I typed "shit" they would print "****", which annoys me. They even did it once in the middle of a word when I typed some word that had one of their competitor's product names inside it. I can see not wanting to have lewd indecent language on your commercial site, but blocking the names of competitors when the letter sequence occurs inside of a word is stupid. Also, on Blogger here the only social network that gets notified when I post is the entire Internet and any humans who by chance subscribe to my feed.

I changed the name to Freak of Nature because that's what I feel like sometimes. I want to expand upon this theme and become more of a freak. I want health and strength and muscles, as well as a better life. Some gloopy blog about my crazy dreams is going to get me nowhere as fast as a blog of my poetry. People like to hear about other people who go from fat and out of shape to healthy. Look at all the stupid reality programs that have this as a premise. This is my own reality show without the annoying commercials.

So this morning I got all jacked up and lifted weights and exercised. Then I got all bent at the dumb look of my personal journal blog and changed that. It would be nice if changing your body was as easy as changing the look of a blog. It took me almost fifteen minutes to mod this blog. It's taken a lot longer to write these posts, but then, writing is time consuming. It will take a year at least to change my body. Years of laziness and sitting around add up. Years of hormonal imbalance caused by medication take their toll. I'm not going to let it get to me. I am not going to let nature take its course and have me bloated like a walrus and gasping for air. I am going to change myself, and maybe a small part of the world with any luck. Enjoy my new blog random visitors.

Lifting Weights

2012-01-25T11:14:00.001-05:00

It's a little after ten in the morning. I have the Linkin Park going on the CD player. I have done two sets of my Dumbbell exercises and am recovering for another set. This morning I stumbled around to music for half an hour instead of watching the idiot box. My energy levels are fairly low today. I don't know why I am moving so slow this morning. The weightlifting seems to be pumping me up though.

This blog has had a few views in the last day. I have no idea what people are doing reading my journal. I am not here to solve your problems. I am a disaffected old man who's going to turn 50 in a few days. I have nothing to sell to you or anything to recommend. I am not the guru of blogging or writing journals. I am not a guru of anything. I keep this blog to record my days, nothing else. Now it's time to hit the weights for the third round.

There, three sets of ten reps all within 20 minutes. I do seven different dumbbell exercises in my routine and use 20 pound weights because that's all the set had when I bought it. I have energy to do this weightlifting shit, but not so much for aerobics. I guess it didn't help this morning that I did the aerobics before breakfast so I was probably burning fat. Fat don't metabolize as easily as sugar.

I haven't had any sugary foods in over a week now. From what I have read the insulin spike the sugar gives causes your body to store the sugars as fat. I honestly don't need to store any more fat. I have enough fat to go four months without food, in theory. If I had a cave I would crawl into it and hibernate like a grizzly bear.

After a few minutes of recovery from lifting those dumbbells I am feeling better. Lifting weights always involves some pain. If I was a masochist it would be the perfect hobby. As it is I will put up with pain if it improves my body. I need to move around more. It's hard in the winter because it's not so easy to just go on walks. Right now the snow is gone and the wind the other day dried up most of the rain. I think this afternoon I am going to go walk around the garden for a while.

It would be nice to meet some people who also want to get into shape. The only one I talk to on this subject is in Texas, and he's just too far away to be a workout buddy. What I need to do is hook up with the health club again and see about going three times a week or more. They send me offers every now and then to renew. I like working out at home actually because it is convenient and I can do it any time I want.

I am thinking about doing something with physical fitness for a business. I need to whip myself into shape first. Nobody is going to take a fat personal trainer seriously. I know how I got this fat. It has a lot to do with the medication the doctors put me on years ago. It messes with my hormones and causes me to put on weight. I gained 70 pounds the first time they had me on that stuff. Right now I am about 40 pounds overweight. I wouldn't be overweight if the extra pounds were muscle. I would be an animal, a freak if those pounds were muscle. As it is I am just a fat old man.

There has to be something I can write about beside myself. I hate typing "I" every sentence, it's very repetitious. There are a lot of things a person could write about. This is supposed to be a blog about my thoughts and dreams and life. I feel like changing the title to something more interesting. This will involve some thought. The net is full of stupid names. How I Became a Freak is perhaps a better blog title. Perhaps that's what I will change it to. It can be my journal about how I changed my body and life. I have been feeling more like a freak ever since I fixed the old CD player.

Freak of Nature might also be a good title for a blog. This blog needs a new title. I don't know what I was thinking to make this blog have such a dumb sounding title. I'm just thinking in words here. I have to decide something. Do I want to label myself a freak? It's a fine sounding word, but who knows. I am thinking I want to become a freak, as if I wasn't one already. Ponder ponder ponder. Nobody reads this blog anyway. I may as well give it a catchy title.

I've been thinking about this for a few minutes. This blog really doesn't convey my personality. I am not some kind of airy peaceful person. I'm laid back, but not aethereal. I want to drive, not go along for the ride. I want to make my own future, not be handed something second rate on a platter. I don't waste time chatting with people about things that don't matter. You can't write anything interesting about the weather or your personal health issues. You can be an example for the downtrodden masses struggling with fast food addiction. You can show people how to change their lives by becoming more active. You can talk about things that matter instead of things that have no importance.

So, after I post this shit blog post I am going to do some mods to this blog. Gone will be the gloopy title and the peaceful blue color scheme. I'm going for that industrial look, like some kind of cyber factory. This is my journal and it should look like a man's journal. Perhaps this will give me some slight inspiration to change my body from a blob to a hardcore monster. No more being a lazy bastard.

Warcraft

2012-01-24T18:38:00.000-05:00

I played Warcraft for a while this evening. The game worked well and didn't lock up on me. I was very busy doing things in the game. I ran around like a maniac doing quests. I went up a tower and slayed mystical spirit beings and some kind of undead elf. I took a crystal to some kind of arcanist. I reported for duties and delivered a package to an innkeeper. I made the inn my home. I bought a new sword and shield and some bread. I ran my money down to just over a silver. I am going to have to do something about making some money. I don't even have enough now to learn a profession. I am thinking I may learn fishing and fish up lots of dead fish and sell them for a copper each. It might be better to do mining and jewelcrafting.

I am playing the free version of Warcraft now. I spent hundreds paying for the game and got nowhere. I play once in a while now for free and live with the restrictions. It's a much harder game in the free version. No mail, no auction house, can't send tells to people, which I never do anyway. I just wander around like a maniac and slay stuff and do quests. My character is all pimped out in vendor and quest gear. I am surprised the game worked so well tonight. I even got to level 6 before I left the noob starter area. 14 more levels to go before I hit the cap.

I spent most of the day listening to music. I even listened to some Pink Floyd tonight. Maybe I will put in some Doors next. I got an hour before watching the tube with Mom and Dad. It wasn't such a bad day today. We all got out of the house for a little while and I had a good time reading and writing in my blog. I sort of gorged on protein foods today and stayed away from the grease and sugar. I got in some easy exercise and will probably go back to the weights tomorrow. Three blog posts here today and only one of them rude. I don't really care. If people don't want to read some old man's journal with him saying fuck this and fuck that, they can fuck off and go to some other website.

German Food

2012-01-24T16:00:00.000-05:00

I just put some sauerkraut and boneless pork chops in the oven for dinner. I had a chicken white meat sandwich for lunch. We are not having bratwurst for dinner tonight, which I call schnitzengruben after the bit in Blazing Saddles. I am sitting in my room listening to music after running out to the store for some stevia sweetener and to deliver some sweat pants to my sister. It is a very cloudy day.

I don't know why I'm writing all this out. My journal is pointless. My life is nothing special. I have no friends to talk to on the phone these days. I am just enjoying myself listening to music after years of listening to nonsense. Why do I listen to nonsense? If I never see another news program again it will be too soon.

I watched a program about wheat this morning instead of the news. I listened to music instead of read today. I wrote in my journal instead of reading stuff on the web. I am taking a day off from lifting weights again, though I did lift some very light hand weights. Why am I writing in this stupid blog?

I think I am going to see if I can get Warcraft to play this afternoon. I have about an hour and a half to kill while dinner cooks. I haven't played my new Blood Elf in almost a week. The stupid game crashes on me every other time I play it now. I have a quest to kill some freak and bring his head back to some other freak. A game where the whole point is to kill random things, how imaginative.

Typing is not one of my skills. I type every day, but never learned how. I go at it with a few fingers. I lack the discipline to learn the proper form. I lack the dedication to practice. I am a loser. Still, I do OK posting random shit nobody reads. I got dinner cooking in the oven. I scored some pure stevia extract. I delivered pants. I dragged a dead dog off the road this morning. I have such an interesting life.

Listening to Music

2012-01-24T12:27:00.000-05:00

I have a Goth rock CD in the player now and I am listening to the dark beats. I worked out this morning for about half an hour using small dumbbells for hand weights and just moving to the music. I haven't had a lot of energy for the last couple days. Right now I am drinking some coffee. Perhaps I am just reacting to cutting out the sugar in my diet. I haven't had ice cream or real candy in over a week.

There are a lot of CDs in this room I haven't listened to in ages. I didn't really lose interest in music. I used to listen to music all night long on the radio. I need to get back into the habit of putting on a music station at night. The shit I listen to at night on the shortwave just gives me nightmares. The commercials on the radio wake me up and annoy me. I can always put a CD on endless play now and just listen to the same album all night.

I don't know what my plans are for today. I don't make plans, I just do stuff. I should work on a writing project I can publish. Blogging will get you nowhere. Nobody cares about blogs, they are a fad. I wouldn't write for the papers because I don't care about the news, politics, commerce, or entertainment. Right now something that must be Corvus Corax is going on my CD player. Who else would play bagpipes?

I have thought about starting a fitness fad called Technocise. You jump around to techno music and lose weight. I am trying it out on myself first. So far I have lost about one pound in a week of watching my diet and getting activity every day. At that rate in a year I will be at a decent weight. I don't know if I have a year left in me. You never know what's going to happen. I have to make some lifestyle changes.

Wonderful, I got the Soundgarden going now. "I'll take the river down to Stillwater and ride a pack of dogs." I like that line in Rusty Cage. I got to listen to more rock music. Fuck, I should be making rock music. What the fuck am I doing sitting in my room writing about what a loser I am? Playing video games isn't going to get me anywhere. Dancing around to the jams like a maniac is much healthier. Why do I have all this music if I don't fucking listen to it? My life makes no sense.

I have decided that this blog is boring. It's too fucking boring and sad to read. I got to make it more interesting. I got to stop being so fucking polite. Rock and roll is all screaming and yelling at people and they love it. Who cares about my fucked up life anyway? I do, but that's not enough. I got to make something out of my life. Ooh, a good song just started, Slaves and Bulldozers. They even used to play that one on the radio sometimes. It's like the best song on the album. I bought this CD at Barnes and Noble. I bought a lot of CDs at Barnes and Noble. I even got some at Borders before they went fucking bankrupt.

What's the point of this blog? It was supposed to be my journal. My journal that random bastard spammers from Russia read. Why am I writing journal entries for random Russian bastard robots? I am writing this for nobody but myself. It passes the time when I am bored. I should not be bored. I have a lot of things to do. I have to get into shape. I have to lift weights. I have to do cardio to burn fat. I have to do something about getting some fucking money. Houses, cars, trips, family all cost a shitload of cash. I am a fucking bum.

I actually have sort of a job. I take care of things around the house. When it snows I shovel and plow. When the basement floods I run the pumps and clean up the mess. I cook and clean and tend the fire in winter. I sit in my room and read about how I too can be successful. None of this gets me anywhere. I started a blog about video games. I have like a few new video games for a handheld system. An old DS Lite is the only system I could afford. I have a huge collection of books. If I could figure out how to sell books for a reasonable profit I could make a lot of cash. If Borders could have figured out how to do that they would still be in business.

I am just fucking rambling this morning. So what. This is my fucking private journal that I chose to make available online free to anyone. Of course, nobody reads this. Who would read some random bastard's personal journal? The same kind of people who look in windows at night at people watching TV? The only reason anyone comes here is to try and leave links to their scam websites. So many fucking scammers on the webs these days it's ridiculous. I get twenty scam emails a day at least. Just type "work from home" into Google and you will get eight billion pages of bullshit websites trying to steal your money. Never give money to anyone. That's the only way to stay safe from these fuckwads.

This journal entry is too long and rude. I don't fucking care if I am rude today. I am sick and tired of being polite to nobody. This is my journal. If you don't like my tone of voice go somewhere else. I am not your friend. I don't want to sell you anything. I have no agenda. I am not fucking looking for votes. The only reason I am writing this is for my own pleasure, which is all I'll get out of it anyway. Want me to run advertisements? Sorry, this isn't some kind of roadside stand where I sell tomatoes. I am not going to censor myself because I want people to try and sell their junk to my readers. I have no fucking readers. All the hits on this site are from spammers, scammers, robots and lost people looking for something else. Seriously, who starts a blog on Blogger for free and expects to get famous?

That's the end of this shit for today. I am fucking sick of typing. All I am doing now is keeping time with the beat of the music. Poking keys to form words that have nothing to do with the thoughts I am not having. This post opens up a new chapter in my personal blog. I no longer have any regard for people reading this, because fuck, they shouldn't be reading my blog anyway. Why the fuck did you come here, to gawk? Go to fucking Gawker if you want to gawk. Go look at lolcats or some other stupid shit. I am plotting my future here and soon I will rule the world. Have a nice day.

Lousy Weather

2012-01-23T18:37:00.001-05:00

I went out today to pick up some medication. The weather was fine until I left the pharmacy. Then it started to rain like hell. It was warm today for January, almost 50. Now it is getting cold again and the wind is blowing in gusts. Almost all the snow I plowed the other day is melted.

I did some light aerobics this morning in my room. I am taking the day off from lifting heavy weights. I tried to eat sensibly today, but in this house that's hard. We had hotdogs and beans for dinner. Hotdogs are basically fat, and canned baked beans are full of sugar. I didn't have a whole lot of either, at least I think I didn't. I ate a large salad without dressing to add some bulk to my diet.

In a perfect world I would live in Hawaii. I would go to the beach and sit in the shade and watch the waves. All I need is a few million to make this a reality. It doesn't actually cost millions to go to Hawaii and live there. It might if I had to stay and not find a job. Right now I am not thinking about a job. I am just trying to get through the day here with all the problems people have in this house.

I haven't played games in a few days. For the last few days I have been reading about fitness. I am in lousy shape. I get tired doing almost anything. Yesterday I was all energized from doing exercise. Today I am all worn out from doing exercise yesterday. It would be nice to go out to the clubs now and then and socialize, but I haven't done that in so many years it's stupid. I sit at home alone. I can see why people get depressed.

I read about amplifiers for a while this afternoon. I read random stuff about random things for a while. In an hour I will probably watch TV for all evening, even though I would rather sit in my room and listen to music. I hate TV for the most part. Above all I hate the TV news. It's a non-stop dramatized shit storm of people's bad trips. I don't want to hear about people's bad trips. I can't even solve my own problems, let alone all the problems other people have. I don't like movies or fiction either because it's almost always about some random bastard's problems. I think people who constantly fill their minds with other people's problems have an illness. This is what society wants. Sane people don't spend all their money on shit they don't need.

New Mission

2012-01-22T12:01:00.000-05:00

I am on a mission now. I want to get into better shape. By better shape I mean damn good shape. For the last week I have been watching my diet and exercising every day. This morning I spent 20 minutes riding the exercise bike and doing some jumping around to music. It's impossible for me to do this cardio stuff without some music going to motivate me. It's about the most boring thing in the world to ride an exercise bike without some kind of music. I used to listen to music all the time when I was riding my bike everywhere on the roads.

I gobbled down a bunch of food this morning. I had oatmeal, three eggs and sausage. I took my vitamins and minerals this morning as well. I have to do some weightlifting with my dumbbells again today. I have hit the dumbbells every day for the last week. I am sick and tired of being weak and lethargic. I need to do something beside sit around and read or play games. I need to find a real game I can play that will get me some exercise.

I'm not entirely sure what triggered this latest surge of activity. Perhaps it is the lousy weather. Perhaps it is reading stuff online about getting into shape. I am not sure. I lost interest in exercise last fall. Perhaps it is because progress is so slow. I gained five pounds over the last couple months. I need to lose about 50 pounds of fat. I am sick of being overweight and out of shape. I have a fitness blog on another site. I have found that blogging is a waste of time. Why would I want to write when I can do stuff. Actions speak louder than words as the old saw goes. It's time to stop talking and start doing.

Internet Protests

2012-01-18T11:08:00.000-05:00

The Internet is protesting today. Google, Craigslist and Wikipedia are blacking out parts of their websites to protest the anti-piracy legislation being considered by congress. The people behind these bills seem to be the mainstream news media. Why does this not surprise me. The same idiots who shovel horse manure down our throats all day on the TV and radio and newspapers, all the while trying to sell us stuff we don't need want to shut down the free exchange of information.

I am not surprised that such laws are being written. The mainstream media is rapidly losing influence in society to the Internet news channels. If they can't compete, they try to get laws passed to make it easier to keep brainwashing people. The news in this country (America) is a constant stream of bad trips and hyped-up non-stories about singled out killers and movie star losers. I can't even watch the news in the morning without getting annoyed at its idiocy.

Now three of my favorite websites are doing the very thing themselves they accuse the government of wanting to do to them by way of protest. Seriously, if they want to protest they should buy advertisements on the mainstream news media and put the bastards out of business so they won't have tons of money to buy stupid laws from our corrupt government.

My Day

2012-01-17T18:17:00.000-05:00

I managed to do just about nothing today. In the morning I played games on my DS and read through an art magazine. Most of the magazine I didn't actually read. I looked at the pictures. It looks like art is pretty much a collection of garbage these days. I should get some junk from the neighbor and frame it and give it names. It's encouraging because I don't have a lot of talent. Perhaps I can make it as an artist.

I spent some time with Mom this afternoon looking at the weather and cooking dinner. It was a quiet day, though the weather got nasty after two. Winter is coming back for the next few days. I wish Al Gore would let global warming take effect. The earth is far too cold in winter. Shave the polar bears if they get too hot. I am sick of freezing every winter.

It would be nice to live in Hawaii. They have decent weather in that state, though the cost of living is higher. It wouldn't really bother me. I would find some way to make living there pay. Mom says she wouldn't go because she likes to see her grandchildren. I say take them all with us, but they have their own lives. Palm trees, beaches, tropical forests, warm breezes, that's for me. This winter hasn't been bad so far, but you never know what's coming in Michigan.

I have not been doing a lot of blogging lately. All I read about the net these days is the furor about the piracy law congress is considering. I honestly don't care if pirates steal my words. I can't afford to register copyright on all my blogs, which means I can't recover damages from pirates if they steal my words. Who the hell would steal my words anyway? Copyright is a scam run by the government to make money from authors.

I played puzzle games for a while today on my new DS. It was fairly fun, but I had other things to do. Video games take a lot of time. This game I got is fun and I can turn it off any time without losing any progress or having to run to some stupid building to save. I tried to show Mom how to play games on the DS, but she said it was annoying her and she went to her computer and played free cell. Free cell really annoys me, so we have different taste in games it seems.

I have to do something about getting into better shape. For the last couple days I have been trying to watch what I eat. It's hard to get exercise in the winter. I walked out to the garden this afternoon to feed the cat, but the rain and the wind and the cold made me turn around and come back inside. I really don't feel like doing any hiking or bike riding in this weather. Now, I used to ride my bike all winter back in the days when I couldn't drive. I would go out to the clubs at night when the temperature was twenty below. I had a motorcycle helmet I wore to keep the cold off my head. Now, I curl up in bed under the warm blankets when it's cold outside. I've gotten soft in my old age.

Cold Day, Then Rain Come

2012-01-15T19:19:00.000-05:00

It was a cold day. I woke up early this morning. The sun was just rising. I got my clothes on and put on my coat and walked down the driveway to get the morning paper, which I never read. I am not really interested in the news. The news is all the bad things that happen to people. It's sad that bad things happen to people, but it's not really my problem. I have enough problems myself without thinking about other people's problems.

I did some art today. I painted an abstract with oil pastels. I read some of a book about abstract painting. I spent a couple hours playing video games on my DS. I helped get dinner on the table for my brother and his family. I cleaned up the pots and pans after dinner was over. I hid in my room for a while and read while they all visited with Mom and Dad.

Not a lot happened today. I didn't tune in any cool shortwave stations. I listened to 89X for a while as I painted. I cooked some food. I didn't go anywhere today. I might go out tomorrow and get some more games. I have some videos to watch from the library in a while. I took a picture of my new painting and posted it on my art blog. It's supposed to get warm tomorrow. I have no idea why I am sitting here writing all this pointless chatter. Perhaps tomorrow I will have a better idea for something to write about, perhaps not. It's cold today, but it will be warmer in the morning.

Shortwave

2012-01-14T15:55:00.000-05:00

The stupid shortwave station I have been listening to wasn't coming in at all last night. Now, I could have lain there in bed listening to static until the station faded in, or I could go root around in the closet and find the antenna I made for the thing some years ago. I got the flashlight and found the antenna coiled up in a corner of my closet. I got the voltmeter and found the center conductor of the dipole and strung that out north-south on the nails in the wall that I put there years ago. I ran the cable down from the corner and tied it off to the nail with a twist tie. I got a screw hook from my hardware cabinet and ran the ground plane end of the dipole out at 90 degrees along the closet wall by the ceiling. I plugged in the antenna to the shortwave receiver and turned up the volume of the radio. The station was coming in good, though still fading a bit, and I had signal strength indicated on the LED pilot lamp. Not bad for ten minutes of work.

Right now I am listening to the West African service of the BBC on 15.4 MHz. The BBC doesn't broadcast shortwave to America these days. It has been syndicated and localized. I looked up the closest service on the Internet this afternoon and punched the frequency into my shortwave receiver. The station is coming in good on my bent dipole antenna. I suppose I could call it a Y-pole antenna. The BBC runs a lot of power on its transmitters, so even though the service is coming from Ascension Island and is pointed at West Africa it still comes in good here in America.

I have another project to do with my shortwave radio. I should make a 3 volt power supply so it doesn't burn through batteries every couple months. Power supplies are not so hard to design for a low power device like a portable shortwave. I suppose Radio Shack might sell something like this already put together, but they would probably charge $25 for such an odd voltage. All I need are some wires, a transformer, some diodes, a power transistor, and a capacitor along with the right connector. For now the battery power will be fine. The computer is not interfering with the shortwave this afternoon and probably won't. I can remember the kind of RFI noise I got running a VIC 20 in the same room as a shortwave. I even have that old tube type receiver in the closet, but that thing eats a lot of power and drifts. Now I think I am going to try and find some pirate radio stations or something.

Started a New Painting

2012-01-13T14:44:00.001-05:00

Yesterday I bought some 8 1/2 x 11 picture frames. Today I took an 8 1/2 x 11 sheet of card stock and started a new painting. It is a geometric construction done with a compass. I colored in three rows of areas today with black India ink. I am not so good painting straight lines with a brush and ink. I spent an hour or two on this today and set it aside. Now I have something to work on for the next few days. I can't take painting fine details like corners on some strange shape for very long. It will look cool when it is done and framed.

It's already almost three in the afternoon and I have not done much of anything today aside from read and paint. It's cold and windy outside and not a day to be going anywhere. I will probably make a pot of coffee this afternoon and do some more reading. I thought about doing some art on the computer, but I have had my fill of art for today. I posted a picture of one of my paintings on my art blog this morning and it got a couple views. I am going to try and post something on my art blog every day for a while and see if it gets any more popular. As far as my journal here goes, I don't care if anyone reads this. The only readers I get here are Russian spammers.

Winter

2012-01-12T22:37:00.000-05:00

The cold is finally coming this year. The wind is blowing, snow is going to fall, and it is getting colder by the hour. I suppose I should expect as much from Michigan in January. It's alright. We had our hot summer. Now is the season of cold nights and ice. I am staying in the house tomorrow. I am getting ready to curl up in bed and go to sleep.

I did a little bit of art today. I re-framed a picture I had drawn ten years ago. It looks better now in a frame that fits it. It's hard to believe so much time has passed since I drew the thing. If I had drawn one picture a day every day since I drew that one picture, I would have 3650 more drawings. If I sold each of them for $10 I would have three years wages at the rate I was making money when I last had a job.

Tomorrow I am going to do some reading and try to figure out what I have to do to start selling some of this art that is accumulating in this house. It's nice to have pictures on the walls, but it would be better to have pictures on other people's walls and money in my wallet. I don't really have much use for money these days outside of buying games or books. I could be doing so much more with my life than hanging around home here doing everyday things.

Reading PKDs Exegesis

2012-01-12T17:18:00.000-05:00

I went to the library this morning and looked over the new book rack. They had a copy of the new edition of Phillip K Dick's Exegesis, a very thick book and at $40 a copy beyond what I am willing to pay at the book store. Now, checking books out of the library is a lot cheaper than buying them, so I added this book to my book bag and checked it out to read.

I read through the introduction and some of the editor's notes this afternoon. This is a very long book, and they are nowhere near to publishing all 8000 pages, so it is a selection. The book is also filled with a lot of notes trying to explain what this guy was talking about when he wrote all these pages. I started reading the text of the book and soon got bogged down in the just wrong information this guy seems to like to write. Granted, it was never intended for publication. There has to be some reason he wrote all these pages. Perhaps you just have to wade through some of the rantings to get to the contained ideas.

I have read a lot of PKDs stuff over the years, mostly the science fiction novels. I can understand where he's coming from with some of his problems. I don't see myself sitting up all night typing random stuff about meaningless questions or obsessing over some random vision that happened some time in the past. You can try to make sense out of life by writing about it, but you know, you really have to just live life and realize that there are some things that can not be explained and in fact do not need to be explained. That's what exegisis means as far as I can figure, an explanation.

Playing Games

2012-01-10T18:37:00.000-05:00

I have a new game system and have been playing games to pass the time now and then during the day. It's a DS Lite and works really well. The screens are small but it doesn't matter. I bought some fun games and I am having a good time when I hook up the system and play.

It has been a very nice winter so far around here. We had another warm, sunny day and I am hoping the good weather will last. I went into town this afternoon and shopped for games. I spent some time this morning reading about art. I am going to go do some more reading this evening.

I think right now I am going to take a picture of some of my art and put it up on my art blog. I think the trees in winter painting in ink is what I am going to get a shot of now. It's black and white and has an Asian look to it. I did this one some time ago and it needs a new frame. Tomorrow might be a good day to head to the dollar store and pick up some frames if they have any.

Art

2012-01-03T19:22:00.000-05:00

I went to the book store this afternoon. I used the gift card my sister gave me for Christmas to buy a couple of art magazines. I have spent the last hour reading Art News. I guess there are still people in this world who collect art. I have been working on my own art today. I painted the edge of the canvas on one of my oil paintings black so it doesn't need a frame. I am a cheap son of a gun.

I guess you could call my art outsider art. I have taken classes, but never fit in with the art world. I have a lot of paintings stashed away in this house. I am starting to give them away to make room for more. I gave one to my Mom for Christmas. I am giving another to her friend because she seemed to like the one I gave Mom. I need to start doing some more paintings. I have a few more canvas boards and large canvas stretches. I have an illustration board down in the basement, though it might be water damaged from the flood this spring.

I was looking over the listings on craigslist this morning for art. I was looking at the listings in the artist section of social craigslist. I really did not see anything interesting. I suppose the thing to do is start my own group. Perhaps I could get the library to host some meetings once a month or so. Perhaps I could do something local. Perhaps this would be a better way to spend my time than playing endless computer games.

It's almost time to go watch TV with Mom and Dad. It seems like I am just wasting the evening watching shows on the tube. They don't even have decent shows on the tube and I end up checking movies out of the library to watch in the evenings. In the time I waste watching TV in the evening I could paint a picture. I think it would be a better use of my time to paint and try to sell what I paint. Perhaps I will skip some of the tube tonight and try to figure out how to start an art group and try to find a way to sell some of my paintings to people who will appreciate them.

New Blog

2011-12-20T17:59:00.000-05:00

I started a new blog about games on Saturday. There's a link in the blog list on this site. I need something to write about, and I like games, so it's a natural. I have 11 posts there already and have been doing something every day on that site. I still have this blog for my personal life if I ever want to write about that, like tonight.

The holidays are here and the weather seems to be nice this year. We got the tree up this morning in the front room and tomorrow we will decorate the thing. There's still a lot of work to do for the holidays. I have to help Mom make coffee cakes for everyone. For some reason she does this every year. Dad just finished wrapping all the presents tonight.

I am going to spend my time working on my new blog and see if I can turn it into something successful. I tried to read a book of movie reviews this morning and it was terrible. I couldn't stand the movies the guy was describing and I couldn't stand how he wrote reviews. I will work on finding my own style for reviewing games. I already did something this evening without even playing a game, just researching it online. There is no shortage of information on various things on the net. That's what it's for, sharing information.

I am doing better these days after feeling down for a while. I have a new project to work on and some possibilities for the future. Tonight I am going to spend an hour or so reading books and then go watch TV for a while with Mom and Dad. We may get some rain tonight or gentle snow, but it's nothing troubling. I went to the library yesterday and got more books and movies. Today I worked on my new blog. Tomorrow I will work on my new blog. I will make something out of my life.

Games

2011-12-14T18:14:00.000-05:00

I have been checking out handheld video game systems today. I have a good idea what I might pick up when I get the resources. I am thinking about a DS Lite because there are a lot of games and it's not too expensive. Game stop has new units for $100 and the games are reasonable and they still carry the used ones. I have old systems and computer games but want something new and portable for some reason.

I am feeling better these days but still am not much into blogging. I got rid of my poetry blog and edited some of my art blog. Today I checked out some books on business from the library and read a short one on how to be a good salesman. My Aunt called the other day and said my cousin might know some companies that are doing some hiring, so I sent a resume over to his email. I am really more interested in doing something for myself. Perhaps I will start a site to review video games and work it up into a business. Perhaps that's what I will do with this blog since it's here and has some kind of presence. Perhaps I will start something new along those lines and keep this for my journal. I just don't feel like talking about myself that much.

The holidays are coming and it's raining tonight. At least it isn't snow. I am going to work on this video game idea and see where it takes me. It's something that has interested me for a long time and that I have never been that far away from. Tonight I have some stupid movies to watch and tomorrow the weather should improve. I went out shopping today twice in the light rain and fog and it was just a bit too lousy to think of doing anything but reading, which is what I am off to do some more of now.