when you mock

you must know how to do it correctly. see, will ferrell and Co put out a humorous health care PSA about health care reform several months ago. whomever made this PSA to "mock" him didn't do quite as well as i think they could have.



the thing is, will ferrell, is a fairly smart man AND he's funny. he can use sarcasm and wit to get his point across, to emphasize the stranger parts of whatever topic he speaking out for or against. he's not saying that since he is a well-paid comedian, that you should listen to him. he's entertaining, and through that entertainment, he is providing information that people need to hear though they might not know where how to go about getting said information. one of the funnier parts of this mock PSA, i thought, was when they spoke about lobbyists. all lobbyists are are unfunny will ferrells. they push a point they are paid to push. will ferrell might be getting paid for these PSAs, but that is a side-note as they are something he truly believes in. you wouldn't find him doing PSAs against health care reform unless some until-now-hidden point came up that changed his mind. he was against prop 8 as well, not for money, but to spread the word using what he is good at... humor.

all i'm saying is, if they'd wanted to mock the PSA, they could've done better, maybe not tried to copy scene-for-scene the PSA, try something original... like ferrell and Co.'s PSAs are to start.

meat is murder

i have a question to my vegetarian friends... and on that note, i have no vegetarian friends, so could you pass this link on to them so i could get their opinion. from this article it seems we may be only 10 years away from test-tube meat. that is meat that you would buy, cook and eat, that was grown in a laboratory rather than fed on a farm and slaughtered. this meat would be able to be adjusted to be healthier, have more of the good fats and less of the bad fats, and would decrease the need for grazing land and in the worst case, buildings cramped full of animals solely for business.

i saw this a report on this on CNNi before i saw the article. studies show that livestock produce nearly 18% of the greenhouse gases that might be affecting our climate. the entire fossil fuel industry (cars, power plants, etc) only produce 13%. that's right! cow farts are doing more damage to our environment than that gas-guzzling SUV you have. if we can culture healthier meat in the lab, we'd significantly reduce greenhouse emissions on a level not even fathomable by environmentalists trying to fight fossil fuel emissions.

so, the question is: vegetarians... would you begin eating meat? would you eat THIS meat? it's no longer "meat is murder"; it never had a face, as is the reasoning for some, AND it would be better for the environment to have people eat more lab-meat, thus making it more cost-effective. if not, what excuse would you have not to? dietitians typically don't say to completely remove red meat, but to limit it to like one serving a week, and as far as i know, there are no health risks associated with chicken at all (we're not talking salmonella here, though that would be significantly decreased since chicken factories that help spread that would be eliminated). would you eat lab-chicken? i'm just curious.

i would. i don't see a problem with it at all. healthier, better for the environment. seems to be pretty much a win-win as long as the cost isn't too much.

i've been dubbed

yesterday, i made my friday trip to ThePC to meet up with the hash group. once there, we had a few beers and realized that there wasn't really enough to people to run the hash, so we "hashed" to TheKiwi's place where he had some lamb chops he wanted to cook. the turnout is low lately because a lot of the people are away on summer holiday or R&Rs. we've agreed that we will definitely run next week, as that will probably be the last time most of us will be together until sometime in september.

anyways, back at TheKiwi's we drank beer, talked about the hash, told stories about our jobs here in egypt and where we've been before. before we started the grilling, TheEweTrollop called for a hash circle. we all agreed it was a good hash, brisk but not exhausting. TheKiwiMike was called into the circle and was called out on FINALLY making a hash (and he made the one we didn't run). then i was called into the circle for the naming ritual. normally, it involves sand and "water from the nile" but none were readily available in the apartment. i was told to kneel, i had to drink for being too competitive on the run that day. then, with an icy heineken poured over my head, i was dubbed...

suck me sack

it might be "suck me zac", but i'll find out officially when the newsletter comes out later. either way, i'm not exactly sure how it came about. i know the night before, we were at TheSpitfire, and i think i was making fun of my name (zachary) with a horrible chinese accent. one of the guys misheard me, and i think he heard "suck a me", and minutes of hilarity ensued from that. that's my best guess on how it came about. we do shoot ourselves in the foot, don't we?

i'd love to elaborate more, but i have to work up the nerve to call TheEweTrollop. i we were invited over for chili tonight, but i'm not exactly sure, and i do hate the phone so.

over and out.

---suck me sack

quickly... some cool stuff

i'm crazy sunburnt from my afternoon sailing trip yesterday. good stories to be told, but that'll be in a day or two. until then, i ran across these and thought they were pretty cool.

i SOOOO want this zombie shirt. fantastic marketing!

and this link talks about a renewable energy concept that would totally rock to see implemented. it's based on bikes being used to charge batteries which then charge electric buses. people ride bikes in europe all the time, we should start doing that in the US.

the benefits of networking

i have a strange time relating to people socially. one way or another, most people are going to annoy me in some fashion that my brain-box obsesses over until i'd much prefer not be in their presence. i didn't notice this trait until being on certain assignments for so long. for the first 4 years with TheGeneral, i worked primarily maintenance jobs; that is, you hop in, work 7 days a week, 12+ hours a day for 3-6 weeks, and you leave. that's it. just enough time to meet people, make some connections, get a job done. you have have just enough time to look around the area, but not so much that you are bored by the landscape.

since 2005, i've been primarily on long term installations. india from early 2005 through late 2006, 2007 was a highlight in bad management where i didn't do much, and then i've been in egypt since january 2008. it turns out, i think, that these long term assignments are slowly but methodically driving me insane. i still cringe when i think of pretty much anything related to india. i met people there that i truly grew to despise due to either willful (or not) incompetence, and general lack of understanding who knows more about what i do. i've noticed it a lot here lately as well. there are some egyptians onsite that i would consider acquaintances, colleagues, but on occasion, they go off on how i NEED to get married and have babies and get a house, which i want to do someday. the problem is, these are from guys that live AND work in egypt. i don't work in my home country with my family. several of these people are muslims who see the world differently (and uncompromisingly) different from me. **please keep in mind, i'm not saying all muslims are like this, just the ones who are driving me crazy are**. one guy wants me to get married so i can have my wife cleanthe house, have my food ready, take care of my kids when i get home so i'll have a calm mind. he doesn't much understand that i don't think i'd be happy with a wife who didn't strive for more than that. i asked him how he would like it if his wife worked and HE took care of the kids, cooked, cleaned, etc., complete role-reversal, but he really had no answer. he basically just said that's not the way it is, not the way his god tells him it should be. but i asked him wouldn't he bored, he said yes... then what about his wife? again, not much of an answer, or at least, not much of an answer a western woman would accept without throwing a few things at him.

in short, my fuse has grown shorter and shorter every day that i'm here. i know it sounds like an excuse, but sober... i have a really hard time tolerating these people. and by these people, i don't just mean the egyptians, i mean some of my colleagues, the hotel staff, the taxi drivers. just about everyone is hitting a raw nerve nowadays.

i've gone off on a bit of tangent though. where i was going with this is, what little sober sociability i had before coming here, it is atrophying, due to the people available to socialize with. then when i joined the delta HHH a little over a month ago, things changed. maybe it's that i'd stumbled into another social group completely unrelated to work, but i'm having a wee bit more fun. granted, the HHH isn't completely (or maybe even at all) sober, but it's introduced me to people that i don't have to be tipsy to not want to asphyxiate. we've been running once a week, learning about each others' past, i've been to several dinners with TheMougli (hash name), who has a similar displeasure toward the indian continent, and his wife, ThePlasticBag (hash name). i was invited on a "diving" trip (entailing nothing but trying to get to every dive bar in alex), but i totally forgot about it after a long day at work. i just got a call from TheEweTrollop (hash name) asking if i wanted to get together at TheKiwi's (hash name yet to be given) house for dinner tonight. i was thinking about going out drinking or maybe catching a movie, but that's what is cool, they go out and do things. they all kind alive near each other which helps, while i'm about a 10 minute cab drive away, but it's pumping some life into this assignment, that after almost 8 months has grown quite stagnant. TheEweTrollop also asked if i wanted to go sailing tomorrow. sailing! i'd never been sailing in my life until last year's R&R to australia, and it was a fantastic time. i thought about learning more about sailing, i'd even bought some books which are waiting for me at home, and out of nowhere, i get invited to go again, and i'm incredibly excited to do something that's still new to me. here's to hoping i don't have to work tomorrow now.

all of this "new" experience stuff can be traced back to accidental networking (that bastard device of kiss-asses looking to climb the ladder... at least, that's how i always thought of it), but this is flesh-n-blood social networking. it's not facebook, it has nothing to do with work connections, favors, benefits. maybe this is how normal people make friends. i may have forgotten how. it all started when we had a trainer here, he met TheEweTrollop and his wife, TheCallGirl (hash name) at the hotel they were staying at as well while waiting for their apartment to be ready. TheTrainer invited us all out to meet at ThePortugueseClub (ThePC), we friended, went on a few daytrips, but i never really thought anything of it. they were nice enough, but with "friends" in this field being so transitory, i figured i mightn't see them again. then i took some time off the drink and didn't visit ThePC again for a while. i went back one night, and as i've told already, imbibed, agreed to run the hash the next morning, and the rest is history. i have a new circle of friends. they've given me names of people they know on the dubai and doha hash in case i get assigned there next, their a mixed bag of pretty interesting people.

and i'm looking forward to sailing tomorrow.

HHH (hash house harriers)

well, the rumors are true. the thursday night before last, i drunkenly and accidentally joined a running club, or more precisely, "a drinking club with a running problem". it's a bunch of rogue ex-pats that are a part of the hash house harriers (click for more info). i was talking to a welsh couple, TheGeoff and TheJanice, that TheMech and i had met at ThePortugueseClub (ThePC) a while ago. i told TheJanice that i'd taken up running every other day out of boredom and trying to get fit, and she told me that was wonderful because they had recently resurrected the local hash. i was 10-feet tall and bullet proof so i excitedly told them i'd meet them at ThePC the next day at 3:30PM for the run.

soon after, the guys i was with (plus one wife) and i decided to go check out the belly-dancing at "paradise" in agami. i'd gone several months before and had fallen in lust with a dancer named TheSabrine. excellent dancer and gorgeous. it's about a half-hour drive, but luckily one of the guys we were with had a car and didn't mind chauffeuring. we got there a little after 12AM and waited for the dancing to start. there was a girl there in street clothes that looked like TheSabrine but she was just sitting on a bench like any other customer. i'd told the wife we were with that i know a dancer named TheSabrine from before, and i thought she was very attractive. not too long after, the girl who looked like TheSabrine came over to the wife we were with, they spoke, and the wife told the girl (who was TheSabrine) that i thought she was hot. so in my embarrassment, i told her "i love you" in arabic (making her laugh was my only hope to get out of this unscathed... and it worked). she laughed, they talked, we sat and drank until the dancers came on around 1AM. at first there were two asian looking dancers that i wasn't to keen on. the rumor was that these girls were the owner's new favorites. as far as i was concerned, he could have them. i hadn't noticed, but i'm guessing around 2:00AM, TheSabrine disappeared to get ready. she came on around 2:30AM and put on a fabulous show. she tried to get me on the dance floor once but, i refused. my vast experience from strip clubs taught me it's RARE you are allowed on stage so it's almost in my genes (TheT!!!). a few more beers later, i was coerced into getting up and dancing with her. guys "make it rain" with LE 1 (1 egyptian pound notes = ~$0.18). i know it's a cheaper society, but i feel it cheapens the whole experience, though one of the guys i was with could resist doing it to me and TheSabrine. i gave her LE 200 later that night in big bills, hoping she could palm one. there's TheMoneyMidget that runs around scrambling up the small bills on the dance floor. i handed this money directly to her hoping she could show TheMoneyMidget one and keep the other for herself, though i'm not sure if we were that smooth. i was pretty hammered by the time and starting to fall asleep, so we all decided to split. i got home around 4AM, updated things on facebook telling everyone i was running the next day, and then i hit the bed hard!

the next day, i dragged myself out of bed around 1PM dreading the run. i zombie-walked around the room to my computer and checked my facebook. i had many congratulatory and pep-talking comments on my run. i'm guessing when i had updated my status on facebook the night before, i was preventing myself from handicapping my way out of running. now that i had all this positive support, i HAD to run, no matter how i felt. so... i crawled back into bed until 3:00PM, when i had beaten myself up enough that i KNEW i had to run. i threw on some clothes, grabbed my iPod and rocking bluetooth wireless iMuffs, and grabbed a cab to ThePC.

we had a pre-run beer at ThePC then were on our way to the egyptian farmland. it was maybe a 5-10 minute drive on the agricultural road toward work then we turned off into the fields, parked the cars and talked about how the run works. the night before the run, the "hares" go out and mark a trail with balls of shredded paper. if you (the followers are called the "hounds") see a ball of shredded paper, you are on the path and you yell "ON ON!" to the people behind you so they know. you run this trail until you come to three balls of paper in a triangle (since this is the delta hash club). this is a checkpoint where the path can diverge. once there you look around for the continuation of the path. this give time for the walkers to catch up to the runners (i'm a hybrid runner/walker). but beware, because the hares have laid traps. at the checkpoint there is one correct trail, and several possible false trails. so everyone spreads out, finds a trail, and starts running it. soon someone will come across TWO balls of shredded paper which denotes a false trail and they have to go back to the checkpoint to find the correct trail. i have an uncanny knack for finding false trails which means, in the end, i run/walk further than most with all the backtracking.

once the directions were given, the hares started the run. on occasion, they will intentionally take a route they know is wrong, to give the newbies an idea of what to look for in a false trail and how it goes. early on in the run we were running along a path next to a tiny irrigation ditch. the water reeds were pretty thick pushing us to jump across the ditch for about 20 yards then back on to the path. just as i was going to jump over the ditch my foot slipped INTO the ditch, covering my lower extremities in mud and, in turn, tweaking my already-bad ankle. i walked most of the rest of the way, carefully testing my ankle with short jogs here and there. after about 50-60 minutes of running around the egyptian farms like lunatics, having the field workers laugh at us, cheer us on, and offer us tea, we were back at the cars for "the circle". "the circle" is a bit like hazing. the newbies are brought into the circle and made fun of a bit, they have to sing, the have to down a more-than-likely warm and flat beer from the ceremonial mugs, jokes are told, stories about the day's run are exaggerated, regulars are given hash names if they don't already have one (one of the driver's was named TheScrewDriver and his daughter was named TheDirtyGirl), the next run is announced and then it's "ON IN"... back to the bar to socialize. this 1-hour run turned into an 8 hour event. good times!

the next day my ankles were killing me, but it was worth it. i've realized i need to strengthen my lower back because running on actual terrain as opposed to a treadmill makes my lower back ache in just a few minutes. i went again yesterday for my second run (hash #7 for the club this year), again had the back problem, but it eased up a bit. the hare who laid the course got us lost a few times. he blames the locals for burning his markers but i think he just got turned around. either way it was all good fun. that the hash update so far.

oh yeah, about TheConfederationsCup... now i'm not big on soccer, but if it's a social event i'll check it out. last sunday, USA was playing egypt and the one of the bartenders arranged for a TV for the bar so myself and a few other americans here could watch the match. as far as i know, the USA isn't really well known for their soccer team, and i HAVE seen egypt play, and i have to say they are pretty good. there were two guys (one kuwaiti and one egyptian) sitting on a couch next to us asking why we were routing for USA to which we replied that we were americans, so we were showing our pride. he explained to us that even if the USA won, it didn't mean anything because they'd lost such-and-such already, so they were out of contention so we should route for egypt. that seemed like a complete fallacy of an argument, a win is a win, so we continued routing for the US, and took great pleasure in watching him sulk when the US beat egypt 3-0. so, the next day i read that the US WAS playing for something. on the off-chance that USA scored 3 more goals that egypt and brazil beat italy by 3 goals, then we were still in... and that's what happened! i haven't YET seen TheKuwaiti to gloat a bit, but if i do see him, i will.

so, on wednesday, TheEweTrollop (hash name), formerly referred to as TheGeoff, had a going away to do for his wife, TheCallGirl (formerly known as TheJanice). she comes to visit for 5 weeks then goes back to wales for 5 weeks, then he goes to visit her for a bit. during her farewell party, the spain-USA match was on. again, everyone kind of figured spain would wipe the pitch with us since they were going for some sort of 36-game win streak record or something like that. during the game, i was getting excited to see that we were winning and got in the way of a guy sitting behind me who asked me to sit down... so i sat down in the chair next to him rather than my own seat. TheAbdullah, as i found out his name, is a professor of pharmacology at the local college. i then found out he got his bachelor's degree at TheOhioStateUniversity in the late 70's. for some reason, that made me say something along the lines of... so, around the time when i was just being birthed, you were partying like rockstar on high street in columbus, like 2 hours from my house, and now, 31 years later, halfway around the world, we cross paths?! i think my mind was blown a bit more than his was. long story short, USA beat spain, the big enchilada, 2-0, and we are moving on to the finals with brazil tomorrow. i'm actually excited for THIS game!

my treadmill 5K

yesterday i attempted to gauge my 5K time on the hotel treadmill. first i weighed myself then i put on my "running" music which consists of some speed metal and hardcore rock (static-x, chevelle, etc). i hit the "5K" button, input my weight, and randomly chose "level 5" not really knowing the specifics of level 5. now, when i run my normal 50 minute run, i set it at 7.5. i'm not sure if that's mph or just a random computer "level" setting on the treadmill, but 7.5 is a good pace for me. once i hit start, the "5K" program ramps you up through three stages through the first two minutes until you get to your 5K pace. it started at like 6.5 then moved up to 9.6 which was a bit brisk, then all hell broke loose as it ramped up to my final pace of 12.7. my heart dropped as i noticed the control panel was moving farther away from me... i was dangerously drifting away from the "SLOW THE FUKK DOWN" button. i lunged toward the button and was lucky enough to get it down to the "level 1" setting, around 7.5 where i like it.

all was safe... or so i thought. i guess i expected too much from the internal computer of the treadmill. it teased me by letting me get into a running comfort zone then, seemingly randomly, decided to speed up to 9.6 again. i seriously almost took a header like the dude in this video. i didn't go down, but i stumbled noticeably (though luckily no one was there to notice). i had to fight with the damn thing every 4-5 minutes to get back down to my comfy 7.5 setting. when i finished, i ended up where i expected, 5K in 25 minutes, but there were some technical difficulties, so i could probably trim a few minutes off. we'll see. i'll let you in on the joke next time i try it.

day 6/7, these shoes are made for walkin'

day 6 and all things are go. no shakes, no "sober hangover", no nothing. the only thing different is that sober, i realize why i drank. this city is boring, this job is basically done, my hotel is... adequate. there's absolutely nothing exciting in this area that doesn't start before maybe midnight (the discos), but i have to be up for work around 6AM so that doesn't work out. so i guess i think i'm proving two points: 1) i don't have a problem, no one has to worry about me, and 2) i drink to make things more exciting. if i was in a hip/happening place with things to do, i might drink less because there WOULD be other things to do. thinking back maybe 6 years until last christmas, i can't think of a SINGLE day that i didn't have at least one alcoholic beverage. really. TheEJ noticed my voracious drinking appetite this past christmas and challenged me to a drink-free 24-hours. since then i've had several. this 7-day challenge came up somehow / sometime in edinburgh, and it's gone off without a hitch. no physiological issues, no psychiatric issues, i'm all good. i just do it for the fun. that being said, i probably won't go bawlz-to-the-wall as much. anyways, this is a prelude to my new healthy regime.

i started the non-drinking due to antibiotics, kept going for the test, and for the past week or two i've consistently jogged/walked at least 5 miles every other day. i got new shoes for this as the shoes i had were more for show than cushioning. running on a treadmill and tedious and boring but i put on an episode of "fringe" or "lost" or something on the archos (thanks chad), and time goes by a little easier. well today i went golfing with my caddy. normally he just caddies, but he's an excellent player. last week, i was awful, so he said this week i get a lesson, so he played with me. the guy is insane. he complained he was having a bad day since he hasn't had time to golf in a month,.. he shot a 4 over (his normal is 2 under). muthafucka! i spent more time on the fairways on the holes around me than on my fairways. he taught me some good tips that i'd need to practice more with. in all it was good fun, i just have a massive inferiority complex when people are better than me at something i'm trying, so even though he said i was doing OK or getting better, i felt like an ass when i screwed up and cursed to high-heaven. (walking during golfing + spending most of the time chasing errant balls = ~3.5 miles)

after golf, i grabbed a taxi back to the hotel. i made small talk in arabic which makes them happy (and also lets them know i've been around a while so don't tryto screw the white person by jacking up the fare). he asked what i do and if i was married. i told him i was a mechanical engineer and not married. he then asked me to meet his daughter for a date. she's a waitress at chili's. i politely told him i might stop by sometime. how would that work

AT CHILI'S: hey, um, anyone in here's dad drive a taxi...? yeah, yours? well hi, your dad told me to come meet you, thinks we should go on a date.

ridiculous. then when i got back to the hotel, i was walking to the hotel entrance past one of the many shops in the mall that my hotel is situated above, when a guy runs out and hands me a business card... "Men's FIRST XXL". again, muthafucka... i'm LOSING weight, and this guy gives me a business card for his s hop that specializes in XXL, XXXL, XXXXL, XXXXXL, and XXXXXXL clothing (i'm not shitting you, they write all those out on the advertisement).

back in my hotel room, i tried to distract myself from doing anything else useful to no avail. i started DLing some movies then decided i was going to walk along the corniche (the main road long the med). i put on my "exercise" shoes and grabbed a cab to sidi gaber. i don't know what sidi gaber is, but it's the closest place on the corniche to my hotel, and i knew if i told the cabbie, "corniche", he'd be confused. i popped in my iPod and started head-banging my way down the corniche all the way to caitbay castle at the west end of the bay. i then turned back and stopped off at the cecil hotel where they have a chinese restaurant on the roof. i sat outside and enjoyed a lemonade and water while waiting for my spicy tuna maki (sushi), hot and sour soup, and spicy BBQ beef. it was a good meal since i'd walked so much (the trip up and back was about 6 miles) and hadn't eaten since breakfast (it was now 6PM). i grabbed a cab from that hotel to mine (the cabbie was a bit confused by this), but he might've been confused by anything. he was OLD. and he had something wrong with him, either tourettes or OCD or parkinson's, i don't know, but the whole ride back, he was jumpin', jivin', and wailin' like a boll-weevil. sometimes while he was shimmying, he'd use the steering wheel for leverage, and as you might know, steering wheels aren't stationary, that is, they can rotate, and rotate they did on occasion making us swerve erratically into oncoming traffic in small alleys.

but, i made it home, that was my fun day. i have pictures, not very exciting but some were cute. i'll add them to this post later, but i'm tired now, so come back for the enhanced version in a day or two. later.

7-day sober, take 2

ok, several days back, i endeavored to go 7 days without drinking. i'm doing this to allay fears friends and family might have, AND it's healthy. as luck would have it, the next day, i was waiting outside the hotel for TheDriver, when a guy walked past who looked eerily familiar. i immediately thought it was a colleague i'd met almost five years ago in spain, but couldn't figure out what he would be doing here, since the only sites that i knew TheGeneral were working on were the one i'm at and the one i WAS at that is very far from here (i now know there was a small outage at an old site about 30 minutes from the hotel he was working on). apparently, he must've recognized me as well (though i had my long hair when we last worked together), but wasn't sure so he nonchalantly showed that the shirt he was wearing had TheGeneral logo on it... he said, "BigZac?", i said "TheJohn? (he shares his name with a popular fake news anchor from comedy central)", and it turns out that we were both right.

TheJohn, being scottish, likes his drink as most of us TAs do, and said that he'd see me at the bar that night to catch up, so i had one day sober and it all fell apart. i took the TheJohn on the weekly KFC run two nights ago, we caught up on where we'd been working and the like. two days ago, we had a day off, so i took him and his mechanical colleague golfing. we are absolute shite (except for the mech colleague, an american indian from oklahoma who hadn't golfed in 5 years or more, and he whooped us). it was good a time, but now his assignment is over, and today he flies out back to spain.

so now, i make my second attempt at healthiness. we'll see how it goes. i've been going to the gym fairly regularly; i do about 5 miles in 50 minutes, a leisurely pace that still works up a sweat. the gym scale says i'm at 98kg which is impossible (that's 215lb), so i need to track down a calibrated scale now. may hand is doing much better, i've updated with another picture at the bottom of this post. more updates to come. i'm still trying to tweak my keyboard to update ZUMEL. since i lost my last hard drive, i lost the specialized keyboard, so i'm rebuilding it now. hopefully, i can update there more soon. thanks to that one visitor i have who has hope i'll update it again, whomever you are.

in related, good news...

while i was on my R&R in scotland that i have yet to post pictures of, i believe it was TheEJ and i got into a conversation on my drinking and how she might be a bit worried about me. i told her i've had more drink-free days since christmas when we talked about it, than in the past loads of years. she then emphasized "day" as in single, which it was. i've not gone two days without a drink in ages, so i told her probably out of drunken bravado, "i could do a week, easy". she recently asked me when i was going to start and i was non-committal as i usually am. i don't have much direction in life, which some find nerve-racking. i just kinda go with the flow, and really make decisions unless i stumble into them or am pushed; thus, here i am.

since i'm on antibiotics, i shouldn't drink to increase their effectiveness. i didn't drink yesterday, i ran 5 miles again, i ate sensible meals all day, and now i'm on today, day 2 of no drinking with no adverse effects (aside from a festering right hand, but that isn't drink related). ebola or bot flies or something pushed me to do my one-week trial run, so now i'm doing it. i'll let you know if i get the DTs, see polka-dotted elephants or spontaneously combust (well, you might have to subscribe the the egyptian papers to hear about that). i'm doing this to allay my friends' concerns, and MAYBE try to be a wee bit healthier. sucks because we are going out for a work dinner to see TheSiteLead off (yeah, I'M being forced into the position, and i'm pissed), and i get along best with most of my colleagues with a few drinks in. we'll see how i do. later kids.

P.S. TheSiteManager just walked in with my company laptop. after TWO MONTHS in limbo with the goofy IT guys, i have a brand-spankin'-new hard drive, and my old encrypted one with all the crap on it i want that i can't get to. AWESOME!!! i can feel my OCD trembling at the base of my cerebral cortex, just dying to boot it up and get things back the way they were. that'll be weeks of work, i'm sure.

the long road home

the drive home from site is about an hour long. not awful, but it will get relatively worse once we start working 12+ hours a day (i'm working 12 today). once we come off the main ring road in maadi, that's when you see how poor the city planner was. i've highlighted my route from the ring road to my house in these two pictures. why can't we just turn left sometimes, but the planner decided that one way bridges and limited overpasses would be a REALLY GOOD IDEA. from getting off ring road to my house takes about 15 minutes. i estimate that if the roads were designed as they are now but with appropriately placed overpasses and exits, that trip would be more like 5 minutes. now that doesn't sound like a lot, only saving 10 minutes, but that's an hour over a week. over a year, that's more than two days i could save to spent on fun things like getting lost in maadi on my bike.



like last night, i ventured out to find "volume 1", a bookstore that i'd heard about from a german i ended up talking to at a local bar. he had an english-arabic grammar book, written entirely in english phonetics, that he suggested. i looked at google earth and mapped my route. going there was cake, no problem. it's a route that kinda filters down to where you can only go one of a few places in that direction. coming back on the other hand... jeez. give me a map, and i'm golden, i can cross-reference, no problems. i memorized the route there, but coming back, like i said, i'm going against the filtered way so from point 'B', going toward home, the roads fan out almost infinitely. if you don't see where this is going, i got horribly lost. all the roads in maadi look the same and there isn't much of a grid, or actually, there are kind of two grids offset by about 30°. so, if you start on the first grid, you can pretty much work your way to where you need to be, but if you turn onto the other grid, then you're fukked, at least, i was. again, the city planner, WTF?! in maadi, there's a section that goes street 13, 14, 15, 201. 201??!! yeah, that doesn't help when you're lost. it's not like street 15 is 70 streets away from my house, nor is street 201 116 streets away. there is no rhyme or reason to how they are named.

i was trapped in the area pictured below (i started at the circle in the middle) for about 30 minutes . maybe you can see my issue. every time i turned, i'd go a block or two before running into street 206 or 213. it was really disheartening like i was stuck in a bad dream. after about 30 minutes trying to do it myself, i caved and asked one of the many army men on the streets where street 85 was. he told me it was way behind me, which, though i didn't know exactly where i was, i KNEW it was somewhere in front of me. then i asked for grand mall which is kinda close to my place. then he pointed in front of me and told me in arabic i didn't understand to take a million-and-five turns to get there. i went that general direction, saw something that looked familiar (though not the mall), thought i was saved, and found myself soon asking another cop for street 85. he knew where it was and in 5 minutes i was home. jules is proud of how i'm venturing out and trying to learn maadi. i found two new restaurants only 3 blocks from our house buried on a quiet suburban street. found another cafe on street 213, but where on street 213, i can't say because, you guessed it, i was lost when i found it. i think i can get back there.


i won't get home until around 8PM tonight, so probably no bike riding tonight, but tomorrow, i think i'll print out a small map of maadi, grab my GPS and ride. see what i find, and then use technology to get home.

there should be a law...

against skinny people in a gym. in particular, skinny people who buy a panini sandwich from the "in-store" cafe and then have them heat it up, spreading it's cured-meat-and-melted-cheesy-goodness smell over to my elliptical machine. WTF?! i was hungry already when i went to the gym, but this guy almost made me homicidal. i have a stationary bike at home i could ride for 30 minutes, but going to the gym removes the element of "boredom temptation", you know, "eh, i'm bored, and it's more fun to grab a sandwich and a beer instead of riding that damn bike!". yeah, so the one place i thought was safe has now been defiled. it's going to take a lot of therapy, but i know i'll have to go to the gym again in another day or two.

in other news, i'm almost done writing the last installment of my australian holiday overview. i had some really witty to write about last night as i walked in the door from the accursed gym, but i've forgotten it now, so i just needed to bitch about waif-boy, and let you know, i've not forgotten how much you love my pictures.

my boring life

i'm currently working on the final picture post from the visit from TheMom, TheJay, and TheRachel. i might be able to get it posted in about 8 hours or so. btw, TheMom made it home safe, if not sore. i was glad to hear that since she didn't call to let me know (hah, j/k).

until then, this will have to do. jules is working at another site in egypt. this one is closer to our apartment, but with traffic, the commute can be hellacious, so sadly, i don't get to see her every night. the past two nights she's been staying at the marriott downtown to avoid the long drive to and fro, so i've been left to fend for myself. it's amazing how quickly i can fall back into my bachelor pad routine without some external female guidance. the night before last, i boiled some chicken cubes and cooked 'em in frank's red hot buffalo sauce. this is a personal favorite as it is good, and it is quick, and fairly healthy (a bit high on the salt content). i also cooked up some mushrooms with it , and delighted over my dinner while watching some TV. last night, i cooked up corn, mushrooms, onions, tomatoes, and peppers. that's all for dinner. jules hates it when i eat corn, all sugar and such or whatever, but i didn't eat much. i was bored so i tried to make ketchup. for some reason, i'm in the mood to make homemade ketchup and mustard. i'm inspired by a distant thought of some homemade condiments i had at jamboree in the hills a few years ago. someone brought homemade spicy ketchup and mustard. as for my ketchup, i think i need to look up a general recipe. last night, i blended up some stewed tomatoes with some vinegar, and added onions and hot peppers and a bit of garlic. it wasn't just right, so i added some homemade dill relish that i'd made a few weeks back from dill pickles, garlic, and onions. that didn't push the taste in the direction i'd expected, and by this time, it was a bit liquefied, so i added flour. i know i'm retarded, and there is no flour in ketchup, but i needed a thickener and i'm a culinary explorer. sometimes culinary explorers take wrong turns and perish in dietary crevasses. luckily, i had my cramp-ons tied tightly and my rope held fast. enough of the stupid ice-flow climbing references. i'll have to look up a recipe and try again.

back to the story, jules probably won't be back to the apartment until thursday or thereabouts, so i have plenty of time to experiment some more. in other news, jules is PISSED!!! she DESPISES needles. from a few posts back you'll know thati had to get a 2nd blood test because mine had expired, so i went down with jules. several days after that, she was sent to tunisia with the explicit clarification that her blood test would be valid when she returned. we found out yesterday that was an explicit lie, so she has to go get her 2nd test today. i can't be with her today for a distraction, so i'm wishing her the best. i know she gets so anxious. she is going to call me when it happens if she can, so she has something to take her mind off. it's just so stupid, how 3 of the 6 TAs onsite have had to have their blood tests retaken because no one here knows the exact procedure for doing this visa thing. it's deplorable.

so that's me. oh, i got my XBOX 360 hooked up last night. i had some networking issues at first, but i finally even got on XBOX LIVE, which we (BTBz) thought might be impossible due to no middle east servers being available. that'll give me something to do until jules gets back. then i'll teach her to race NASCAR, frag in halo3, and snipe in GRAW2. i can't wait.

happy easter to all the churchly folks

i didn't even realize it was easter until i saw all the easter vids on myspace and the easter messages on facebook. is that bad? i just started a book today, "the complete idiot's guide to world religions", and i'm dragging myself through a couple chapters of the bible every couple weeks. oh, the joy of learning.

anyways, i just popped in to say, last night i weighed in at the gym, and i've lost 16.3 pounds since i've started recorded which just over a month ago. jules and i decided i was allowed to have a "gift" or a "break from my diet" for one meal once i'd lost 15 pounds, because i'm ALL about the positive reinforcement. i don't even like ice cream that much, but walking past the baskin robbins is tempting just because i know i CAN'T have it. so tonight, i get to have a 1/4 pounder with cheese meal from mcdonald's DELIVERED. i'm so excited. now THAT is bad, being excited to get to have a cheeseburger that isn't even really good, and some greasy fries (i won't eat all of them). i don't get to skip the gym since there's no NASCAR race on today, so gym, mcdonald's, some billiards, and bed. i'm getting a migraine (i get tunnel vision and after-images more than intense pain), so i need to run, take some headache meds quick.

something to whet your appetite

i'm writing a rather large post about my trip to the pyramids at giza, but with getting the pictures where i want it and being as humorous as possible, it's taking a bit of time, so until then... i give you this.

when i arrived in egypt, i weighed 275lbs. until jules got here, my weight didn't fluctuate because i was still living my normal lifestyle of eating out, not exercising, and drinking. when jules arrived just shy of a month ago, i was still 275lbs; this was when i joined the gym, and she started enforcing the diet i couldn't do on my own. when i finished my workout at the gym yesterday, i weighed myself, and to my surprise, i'm already down to 264lbs. it's not THAT tough, but i do have a hard time with wanting little snacks here and there. i'm dying for a mcdonald's cheeseburger. i didn't even really like them that much before my diet, but the fact that there is one right at the end of my street, and i CAN'T have it, kills me. plus, their single cheeseburger, you know, the kind you can get on the $.99 value menu or in a kid's meal is HUGE! it's probably bigger than a U.S. quarter-pounder. anyways, i've been telling jules that i'll fail my diet if i have to go cold turkey, as that is the common failure method of most diets. so, i've gotten jules to compromise that when i lose 15lbs, i get some junk food as a reward. nothing crazy, maybe just a cheeseburger or a meaty pizza, something to get rid of the craving and reward my child-like desire to receive praise and recognition for doing what most people do naturally.

until then, jules (and me on a rare occasion) is cooking dinner every night. i thought of the idea a bit too late to get all our meals, but i wanted to photograph what we are cooking. jules has looked up a load of egyptian recipes, and a lot of the time, we are just flying by the seat of our pants. this first picture is something jules made a few nights ago that was pretty much random. she has severely limited my meat intake, so she kindly offered to make me some beef. she likes "fresh" peas (which i think is ridiculous because it all tastes the same to me), so i asked if we could make cream peas. MMMmmm. she obliged and was even nice enough to add some pepper cheese, red bell peppers, and yams (which i was EXTREMELY wary of, i hate the idea of yams and sweet potatoes). the meat we have is really tough, so we simmered the hell out of it. we added stewed chopped tomatoes, tomato paste, yams (again, i was thinking ICK!), onions, green bell peppers, garlic, and at the last minute, i thought to put some red wine in it to thicken the sauce a bit. after cooking for ages, we ate, and it was magnificent. i'm still in the "fatboy" state of mind, so i'm always wanting large portions and seconds, but she is helping me to say no, and save some for lunch, etc. our dinner was accompanied by an impressive shiraz, and btw, the yams turned out to be not nrealy as nasty as i had inticipated.

the second picture is one of my creations. i'm a simple man. when i'm hungry, i'm hungry, and i don't want to wait, so my recipes are pretty quick and dirty. this day, i made buffalo chicken strips. i'm not allowed to have the breaded, fried, chunks o' chickeny goodness you find at your local BW3 or wing place. still, while working in rhode island several years ago, i found a pizza place called "nico's" that just put regular wing sauce on cooked boneless skinless chicken breasts that were cut into small bite size pieces. they were GREAT. just about the only thing i ate while i was there was those and the local deli made great subs with "hots", what they call a special mix of peppers. at the grocery store the other day, almost like a light from above, i found a bottle of "frank'd red hot BUFFALO sauce". i thought i heard angels on high, it was that good. so for dinner i made the nico special. i cut up chicken breast and parboiled it while i warmed up the sauce. i added a bit of sriracha hot sauce, heinz extra hot sauce, garlic, cayenne pepper, and a wee bit of butter. threw the chicken in the sauce, cooked a bit more, and *PRESTO* my part of dinner was ready in like 10 minutes. jules suggested we could have celery as a side, but we needed bleu cheese, so she decided to make homemade bleu cheese dressing, it was fantastic. bleu cheese, lite mayo, vinegar, a bit of sour cream, garlic, parsley, worcestershire sauce, and some heinz extra hot sauce. that meal was washed down with an egyptian-brewed american-style lager made by a dutch company, heineken, that goes by the name of stella. strangely, all the beers i found here are made by companies that are subsidiaries of heineken.

i didn't mean to make this a menu or recipe post, i just want to let you know, that despite my bitching aobut being hungry, jules starving me, etc. i am eating well. jules is an amazing cook, and we are pretty good at impromptu. that's all for now, back to finishing my pyramid post.

gettin' healthy

i hate it, it's killing me (er, rather, the opposite, but it FEELS like it's killing me), but i have to do it. i joined the gold's gym in town about two weeks ago, just before jules arrived. since jules has gotten here, she's been regulating my caloric intake = starving me. i no longer get a sandwich from the petrol station on the way to work for breakfast. now i get a tomato with some feta cheese. lunch is no longer pizza and sandwiches, i get a salad with salsa for dressing and sometimes soup. for the first time in my memory, i had nothing but vegetables for dinner the other night (peas, brussel sprouts, and beets with goat cheese). it really wasn't as bad as i made it out to be, but i like my meat, and i miss it. mcdonald's and other restaurants of the like are out of the question until i lose 15lbs, then i get a celebratory meal. since i've been doing this i've lost 6lbs (maybe i'll keep a weight tracker... i'm not proud, my first weigh-in at the gym was 125kg, that is, 275lbs... but i carry it well, all belly, no ass). we've been eating lots of veggies and chicken, no fast food, minimal "processed" food (i don't understand her blanket disdain for processed foods). i'm pretty good at the gym. 30 minutes on the elliptical without being out of breath (but i strangely get out of breath on a stair-climber), then 30 minutes or so lifting. jules joined up with me on sunday. i'm trying to go 4-5 times a week (thursday and friday are definitely out as they are "the weekend") jules is going to try to go 2-3 times a week and do yoga the other days. she makes dinner for me for when i get home which is nice. this living together thing isn't too bad, so far.

anyways, i digress. this picture is from a dinner we were invited to last night. our driver invited us to dinner with his family several weeks ago. the first time we had to cancel because i had to go to alex and jules was going with me, and the second time, we had to cancel because TheMech decided to have a barbecue on the same day. so last night was the rain check, though TheLead ended up having to meet up with some people that are basically who we report to for this site. TheLead invited TheMech to go. this caused a bit of a food overage. originally, there were going to be 6 people: me, jules, TheElec(trical), TheLead, TheMech, and their driver. then they told our driver that two more would be coming totaling eight (so our driver's mom bought more food). THEN since TheLead and TheMech went elsewhere (and their guests as well) eight guests became three. we arrived, met his mom, dad, 4 brothers and 4 sisters, sat down and talked a bit, then the feast above arrived. WOW! one things i don't like much about visiting families in foreign countries is their insistence on stuffing all the guests to the gills and then insisteing on just a bit more + dessert. being on my diet, jules let me ave a bit more than i should've but when the hosts piled 3 chicken cutlets and 2 pigeons on my plate, i knew hat me be a bit out of hand for my shrinking stomach. i'm gonna try this... in the picture above you can find (clockwise, starting at the left): kofta, sliced tomatoes, a load of grape leaves with rice, roast beef (in the green pot), samboussek (behind the beef), more grape leaves, a type of rice called "freek" (?), baba ghanouj, rice-stuffed pigeon (egyptian viagra is the lore), more freek, meat lasagna with bechamel, and four game hens. after that, they offered us the sweets were brought them as a gift. it was FAR too much to eat. there were two large trays of lasagna in the kitchen, there were probably 8 pigeons, googly, just far too much food. we are going to be eating it at work for lunch for days. all the food was amazing, his family is incredibly nice, it was a thoroughly enjoyable time. still, we had to cut the night short. TheElec had to get back to the hotel to call his fiancee.

when we got home, we got ready for bed, i kicked on the TV and satellite to see something i haven't seen in such a long time... a NASCAR race LIVE on TV. i ordered this sateliite specifically because it has LIVE NASCAR. so at 10:30PM, i turned on the TV and watched an hour of the pre-race for the las vegas race. i made it through an hour of the race before i noticed i was dozing around 12:30AM. the race was on until 3:00AM. i'm going to try to get a nap next sunday night, so i can stay up late to watch the race.

well, back to work. i gotta get in the mindset to go to the gym, blah, but they tell me it's good for me.

SO NOT FUKKING FUNNY!!!

ok, this turning 30 things sucks. i'm never sick, then i got what, i assume, was a cold (cough, sore throat) just before coming to egypt, and yesterday i had to call off work for what, i'm guessing, was the flu (chills, fever, body aches). so flashback 2 days ago, tuesday, work is work... slow, and i'm starting to get strange chills, i think i might have a fever, but can't tell for sure. on the way home, i'm still chilled and feverish, so i pass on eating dinner at TheMech's place, cooked by his new housekeeper. instead, i go to the hotel, shower, put on my new steeler jammies (long sleeve shirt and long pants), and order dinner. i tried to eat some spaghetti but wasn't very hungry, so i crawled into bed at 8:15PM. i had the heater turned up and was buried under the blankets to try to sweat it out. well, tuesday night sucked. i tossed and turned and SWEATED MY ASS off. when my alarm rang wednesday morning, i knew the unthinkable was going to have to happen. i was going to have to call in sick. in 7 years with TheGeneral, i've only taken 1/2 a sick day in india. wednesday, the total went up to 1.5 sick days with my company. i called TheSiteLead, told him the situation, and he was cool with it. then i crawled under the blankets to sweat it out some more. i slept for another 15 hours or so until TheSiteLead called at 5:00PM to see if i was alive. i decided to pour myself out of bed and try to eat. i cleaned up a bit and tried to eat some lasagna at the italian restaurant downstairs. i only had a few bites of that and a bowl of minestrone. i went back upstairs, watched a bit of TV, read one of my books, and was back in bed at 10PM. i woke up this morning feeling good. i think i sweated out the fever, my stomach is at 80%, and i'm doing pretty well.

oh, but hell, i got away from the title of the post, and THAT is the important thing. tuesday, while i was still feeling sick, i saw TheSecretary in the hallway, and she beckoned me to come to her. i like being beckoned, so i obliged.

TheSecretary: sir, you have to go...
ME: huh?
TS: yes sir, you have to go...
ME: what do you mean?
TS: (makes a jabbing motion at her wrist)
ME: ??? wtf?
TS: sir, your test... you are positive, you have to go
ME: (shites my pants) you're joking, right?
TS: no sir, no joke, you have to go

i was already feeling ill, and that certainly didn't help. i was a zombie the rest of the day. granted, she was saying all this with a slight smirk, but she insisted she was not joking, she'd heard from the other assistant who had gone to cairo to get my results. if by some stretch of some crazy imagination it turned out i was HIV+, the assistant who went to cairo was going to get his face punched to a meaty pulp for sharing that news to people who didn't need to know (it wouldn't have been too much more trouble since rumor has it, if i'd've come back positive, the ARMY comes and escorts me to my hotel to get my stuff, and takes me directly to the airport to get me out of country. civil rights, my ass). i was petrified, completely useless. i knew she was joking, she had to be, but she wouldn't let it go, avoiding me like the plague, no pun intended. i was pissed, part of me was scared, and i was sick... BITCH!!! just before i left work that day, the assistant came in and told me i was negative. i asked for a copy of the test for my own records. that circled word (i looked it up) IS arabic for "negative".

my first HIV test

man, that's a strange thing to write. yesterday i took my first official HIV test. the egyptian government requires an in-country blood test for a work visa. funny enough, when i was working in turkmenistan many moons ago, they required one too, but my driver took my passport, $20, and an hour later, i received a document certifying i was HIV- . ah, corruption.

(jules, don't read any further than this, you won't like it, let's just deal with it the day you have to go).

so, i took the 1+ hour drive into cairo to the clinic where i was going to get my HIV test. i slept most of the way out since it is mostly desert roads until you get into the gridlock of downtown cairo. once we got there, we asked a few direction to the reception, paid my $6, and was given a receipt. luckily we have an office administrator who goes with us to help with the language barrier and at pushing to the front of the line (since, again, this is a country that has no idea what a queue/line is). we were directed up four flights of stairs to the blood-drawing office. this is where i became a little uneasy. on each flight there were 2-3 blood-stained cotton balls, the kind they give you post-puncture, on the ground. there were trashcans at the bottom of each flight, but the people just tossed this biohazardous cotton balls about as if they were a piece of harmless paper.

at the top of the fourth flight of stairs, we rounded a corner to the blood-giving office. the entire office was MAYBE 10'x10', and it had a glass divider in the middle. just inside the door were about 10 people all crowded around the "receipt" desk to give their receipt and receive their vial. the admin guy went to do the pushing for me, and after about 10 minutes, he got my vial. all this time, i'm watching through the glass partition at people giving blood. it's just a different society, a different culture. there is no privacy, there is no personal space, that's the way they live. i watched out of curiosity but also out of concern. i was watching the nurse intently to make sure she was following guidelines that I'D insist upon. i was surprised that she was. she changed her latex gloves after every patient, she unwrapped sterile needles in front of you, plugged them into sterile plastic syringe bodies, she alcohol swabbed my arm, and after depositing my donation into my vial, she disposed of the needle in a "sharps" box. despite the lack of privacy and the assembly line mentality, i was impressed at their professionalism and protocols. since i'm one of the bigger people in egypt, it took her a bit longer to locate a vein in my arm, but she was following an adaptation of the adage, "measure twice, cut once". once she was sure she found one, she went for it, and like that, i was done. no poking, no prodding, no pain. she was GOOD!

after that, i had lunch, and talked with the admin as to the purpose of the HIV test. i asked that, hypothetically, if i had HIV, would they not let me work here. he said they wouldn't. i was surprised. i asked what HIV+ people were supposed to do to earn a living then, if they won't be employed, and if i understood him correctly, he said they are segregated from society. i'm hoping, but not optimistic, that they don't do such things, and also that they don't think they "have it contained", per se. ignorance to such things can cause more damage than the disease itself, but that's not the point of this post. after lunch, we ran a few errands and we back at work just before quitting time.

i have no reason to worry that i have HIV, no blood transfusions, major/minor surgeries, no illicit drug use or needle-sharing, no risky sexual practices (aside from the kama sutra, HAH!), but still... it's strange to wait. every once in a while, i'm anxious about it. what if i got a false positive? i'd prolly shite myself. then i'd want a re-test, i'd micro-analyze every situation i'd every been in, then i'd get paranoid, and start freaking. all over a blood test that i have nothing to worry about.

so, here's to getting a '-'.

walking from the south side

last night i went down to south side via the hotel shuttle. lots of bars, clubs, restaurants. no real chains which is the good thing. if you want chains you go more to station square it seems (i just got back from the hard rock there). i had a good time, talked to a few people, not too many as to break stereotype. i think i'd like this place a lot more if i had someone to barhop with, but such is life. i got a call while eating dinner from the other guy working with me at site. the customer is so far behind schedule that they don't need us to come in next week. they let us go for now. since i have vacation coming up, i doubt i'll be going back. anyways, around 1AM i decided to start on my way home. the hotel shuttle stops service at 11PM, and i couldn't find a taxi to save my life. if i did see one, they were on the other side of the street with no signs of turning around or full already with passengers. luckily, on the way down there in the shuttle, i'd asked the driver how to walk back if i happened to get stuck in this very situation, and he gave me directions i remembered. back to my "exercising while drunk" theory, i think it'd work. if i was sober, i'd've probably given up and stood in the street until someone took me back to the hotel, but i walked almost 2.5 miles back to the hotel. yup, that's my path (click for a higher-res pic), and the is EXACTLY how the driver told me to get back. i think there has to be a more straightforward way, but i really can't see one. the closer bridges are passenger only, the bridge i crossed fed directly into a tunnel that cut off some time. i don't know, but it didn't seems like 2.5 miles at all. strange.

i need a workout buddy

not someone to "spot" me or anything, just someone to make me feel bad for not going, and to make me feel bad when i want to give up after 2 sets instead of going for 3. yesterday, i dragged my self to the gym, since i'm paying $50/month (and that's just for ONE of my gyms, hah). i haven't gone since the breakup in SLC. i walk around the house bored all day, nothing to do, but the gym is daunting. everyone there looks better than me, knows the machines better than me, and the worst, i get inhumanly bored riding a bike or using the elliptical. it's better when i'm lifting (which i don't need to do, i'm big enough), but then i do what would most ostensibly hurt myself, i lift the weight of the guy before me. maybe it's an alpha male thing, which i'm not trying to be, just sizing up myself, see EXACTLY how out of shape i am compared to the super jocks [btw, arms, chest, back... they destroy me, but i have naturally strong legs for some reason (um, to carry my fatass frame maybe), and have yet to not be able to lift what the guy before me has and sometimes, the entire plate rack].

anyways, i should've gone today, but i'm sore, and i'm not motivated. it's going back to my own little version of ADHD. i have a million things i want to do, i'll start them, or try, then get distracted onto something else. yesterday, i only did 2 sets instead of 3, i was disappointed, but i got bored with it. blah. what can i do?