Tuesday, July 22 Absurd causality

Post 1238, Day 203 of 2014
- 1,299 days since I started this blog -

Daily Comment

I was going to write about causality, but it seemed absurd, so, because I'm tired and it's a long day, I didn't.

That is all for today's comment. 

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 Food and Diet Section

2014 Daily Weight

Today's Weight:          211.2 lbs

Previous Weight:         209.2 lbs

Day Net Loss/Gain:       + 2.0 lbs

Diet Comment

No surprise on the big gain in weight - yesterday, after lunch, was like a cheat day in all respects. I did much better today, I bet some of that weight comes off.

Food Log 

Breakfast

A cocoa-hemp-kale protein shake (almond-coconut milk, kale, large organic egg, whey powder (24g protein), hemp seeds, hemp protein (7g protein), raw organic cacao powder, chia gel, moringa leaf powder, cinnamon and stevia-inulin blend.

Lunch

Protein bar. Yes, I know.

Dinner

A half fish burrito at an open mic. 

Snack

Cole slaw.

Liquid Intake

   Coffee:  26+ oz.   Water: 104+ oz.

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Monday, July 21 Other people's problems

Post 1237, Day 202 of 2014
- 1,298 days since I started this blog -

Daily Comment

One thing I've noticed as I've researched foreign retirement destinations: Most of my problems, and most of the problems of my friends, aren't problems for most of humanity. 

Because my friends and I share a pretty middle-class lifestyle (with a few upper- and lower-class outliers) , problems like global harming, undocumented immigrants, built-in obsolescence, inadequate retirement savings, crappy services, too much consumer choice, high taxes, and so on, are trivial problems. 

Most of the world's population is worried about basic human issues - getting food and shelter, protecting the family. Only the world's wealthy (which, in this country, includes everybody in what's left of the middle class) can afford to be outraged over anything else (including different beliefs, sexual orientations, and such ephemera as fame, fashion, and every single thing - including the news - you see on television).

I need to be better at recognizing the things that are only concerns because I make them so, which is pretty much anything that concerns me at this point (band stuff, work), when I am at my happiest.

I am not in the business of proselytizing anything - there's no convincing anybody of anything. Concern and worry are just places on the fear spectrum, and it is my goal to be unafraid.

Why did this come up? The friend who had previously complained about the "immigrant children" massing at our Southern border today complained that the cost of her non-prescription eye-color-changing contact lenses was too high, locally.

I hope you're laughing along with me. 

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 Food and Diet Section

2014 Daily Weight

Today's Weight:          209.2 lbs

Previous Weight*:        210.0 lbs

Day Net Loss/Gain:       - 0.8 lbs
               * Friday, July 18

Diet Comment

I ate a lot this weekend, a slim majority of it on-plan, but a lot of off-plan stuff. Glad I wasn't recording it. Today won't be pretty, what with delicious pizza the only thing on the menu for dinner.

Food Log 

Breakfast

A cocoa-hemp-kale protein shake (almond-coconut milk, kale, large organic egg, whey powder (24g protein), hemp seeds, hemp protein (7g protein), raw organic cacao powder, chia gel, moringa leaf powder, cinnamon and stevia-inulin blend.

Lunch

Salmon salad (Wild Alaska pink salmon, mayonnaise) on baby kale, baby spinach, chard, and cole slaw mix.

Snack

Soft-serve ice cream (first of the Summer. I'm proud of resisting this long!).

Dinner

At Ironwood: A personal pizza I didn't like. It had bacon and mushrooms on it, though, so not all bad. 

Snack

Big fail: A pint of ice cream (to compensate for my disappointing dinner).

Liquid Intake

   Coffee:  28+ oz.   Water: 124+ oz. A glass of Pinot Noir.

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Friday, July 18 Mexico

Post 1236, Day 199 of 2014
- 1,295 days since I started this blog -

Daily Comment

I may move Mexico onto my retirement list. Right at the top. It may be the best solution to keep on doing what I'm doing now.

I have been considering what it would mean to give up some of the lifestyle choices I have made to live somewhere that doesn't support them. Mexico is so American, that I wouldn't have to do think about that. 

Plus, it is, outside of Canada (affordability and walkability checkboxes un-checked), the easiest place to get in and out of the US for visits.

It is also one of the two places (the other being Ireland) where friends have successfully expatriated.

There are more North American expats living in Mexico than any other country on the planet, which is BOTH logical and reasonable. A place like Puerto Vallarta, developed as a resort destination almost entirely by Californians after the filming of 'Night of the Iguana' there in the 1960s, could pass for almost any Californian coastal city of the same size, but its prettier and cheaper, and still retains some of the local culture. 

Which is still important to me. I'm intent on developing a good relationship with the local culture (wherever I end up). Mexico, quite uniquely among the destinations on my list (except, maybe, Uruguay), still allows me the option to get and use the cooking appliances I'm used to, and keep taking the supplements I like. 

That's very attractive.

Note:
Yesterday, I read a wonderful short story, and I thought it good enough to share. It's called, The Egg. I have since learned that it is pretty famous, but it was new to me. I e-mailed it to my family. Enjoy.  

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 Food and Diet Section

2014 Daily Weight

Today's Weight:         210.0 lbs

Previous Weight:        210.0 lbs

Day Net Loss/Gain:      + 0.0 lbs

Diet Comment

Yesterday's breakfast spoiled what would have been a good day. Well, we'll try again today.

Food Log 

Breakfast

Skipped.

Lunch

Skipped.

Dinner

Peppers, onions, baby kale, baby spinach, chard, hot cappicola omelet. Not shown: Cole slaw.

Snack

Lentil chips and hummos. Pepperoni. Cole slaw. Dark chocolate.

Liquid Intake

   Coffee:  24+ oz.   Water: 90+ oz. Two shots of 6Gingers Irish whiskey.

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Thursday, July 17 Ghost gig

Post 1235, Day 198 of 2014
- 1,294 days since I started this blog -

Daily Comment

After one of my busiest days ever at work, I'm playing a late gig.

A Thursday night gig, starting at 9:30pm, pay is half the $5 cover charge.

I wrote on my Facebook status: "Sh-h-h! Bradshaw Blues has a secret gig. I'll pay the cover for the first dozen who show up."

I did it because I think it is difficult to get an audience for a late gig on a weeknight. I think it is difficult to get an audience willing to pay a cover for a single band any weeknight. I think if you do both, nobody will come.

I know four other places with live acts tonight, all with multiple performers (guaranteeing an audience that at a minimum consists of the musicians before and after they're on stage), and not charging any cover.

I think any potential audience members will go somewhere I am not.

I wrote the words above in the afternoon before the gig. What follows was written when it was done:

While we were setting up, I got a call to see if I could sub for one of the four bands I mentioned above, whose bass-player no-showed. Of course, I had to turn it down, even though my best hopes for the night were that I would actually end up losing money on the gig.

Nobody came. Nobody took me up on my offer, but during a break, I comped four people who wandered by (there were some people who also declined my offer), at a cost of ten dollars, and we had an audience for about six songs. When they left, management called the gig. 

It was early enough for me to load out, drive home, unload the car and be asleep before 1AM.   

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 Food and Diet Section

2014 Daily Weight

Today's Weight:         210.0 lbs

Previous Weight:        209.0 lbs

Day Net Loss/Gain:      + 1.0 lbs

Diet Comment

Dessert and wine? I guess I have to pay the price.

Food Log 

Breakfast

From Denny's:

Take-out Meat Lover's omelet with hash browns and dry rye toast. Kind of sad that this is the healthiest breakfast option I can come up with when I'm not making my own breakfast. It makes me miss Quest bars after less than 24 hours....

Lunch

Salmon salad (Wild Alaska pink salmon, baby kale, baby spinach, chard, cole slaw mix and balsamic vinaigrette.

Dinner
Pepperoni.

Snack

More pepperoni.

Liquid Intake

   Coffee:  28+ oz.   Water: 84+ oz.

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Wednesday, July 16 Other people's questions

Post 1234, Day 197 of 2014
- 1,293 days since I started this blog -

Daily Comment

Today, I almost got to work on time - I was five minutes late.

If I'd gotten to work five minutes earlier, it would end an unbroken string of lateness that stretches back years.

So what? Well, nothing much. But if I'd gotten to work five minutes earlier today, I'd have had coffee in hand when I got my first problem call of the day, and would not have been thinking about this:

Ask the right question. The one you want the answer to, not the one about why you want an answer.

Don't pre-suppose where the answer will come from, or what the answer might be when you frame your question.

This is acquired wisdom, and it didn't come from years of asking the wrong questions myself. It comes from years of trying to answer them.

The call I got reminded me of this, because the questioner began by admitting that they'd pulled my name from a list of people "in software" who didn't know who to call.

I'm proud I didn't ask why she chose my name out of that list.

She then told me the steps she'd taken to help a co-worker do a task. The co-worker still couldn't perform the task, and she couldn't understand why.

I asked if the co-worker was able to follow the same process she did to accomplish the task, but they hadn't gotten that far, because there was a problem first.

The rest of the call was spent re-framing the question, and once we got to the right question, she actually said she knew someone who might be able to help her.

I may or may not be good at doing my (actual) job here, but I am very good at debugging other people's logic problems.

Not my own, of course, but other people's. I am Spock, not Captain Kirk. 

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 Food and Diet Section

2014 Daily Weight

Today's Weight:         209.0 lbs

Previous Weight:        208.2 lbs

Day Net Loss/Gain:      + 0.8 lbs

Diet Comment

I think this little bump is due to last night's dinner (containing almost nothing I usually eat) and late snack carbs. Today's dining out probably won't help, but I have finally finished the whole Quest bar order after 3 months, and I'm not going to reorder... yet. That might help.

Food Log 

Breakfast

Skipped.

Lunch
At Ling-Ling's Chinese Buffet and Grill:

Brussels sprouts, kimchee, and, from the "Mongolian Grill", my go-to dish: pork and chicken with cabbage, onions, mushrooms, green peppers and broccoli.

Snack

A cocoa-hemp-kale protein shake (almond-coconut milk, kale, large egg, raw organic cacao powder, hemp seeds, hemp protein (7g protein), chia gel, whey powder (24g protein), moringa leaf, cinnamon and stevia-inulin blend.

Dinner
At Eskapes: Blackened salmon BLT salad and sauteed vegetables. Cookies for dessert.

Snack

Ezekiel 4:9 Flax toast and guacamole.

Liquid Intake

   Coffee:  34+ oz.   Water: 98+ oz. A glass of Pinot Noir.

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Tuesday, July 15 Off the personal map

Post 1233, Day 196 of 2014
- 1,292 days since I started this blog -

Daily Comment

What would I do if I retired tomorrow? 

I think that's a good question, given that it is a possibility, albeit a remote one. The only reason I have for not retiring tomorrow are that I am enjoying my life as it is right now. Retirement wouldn't enable me to do more than what I enjoy doing now. 

My retirement planning so far has consisted of financial planning, including research into places I could afford to live at my current middle class, bourgeois level - and without a car. 

But the fact is, is I don't have a good feel for what I would do with all the free time I would have.

Since I started kindergarten, the only time I've had the kind of free time that retirement brings with it has been while on vacation.

I don't have a clue how I'd spend all that much time. Sure, I have a little list of things I'd like to do (learn to play the upright bass, get better on guitar, have a repertoire of songs to sing and play. Hmm - all music stuff. Telling).

But I could do that now - I have some spare time - but don't. Also, those things are things I would need to do when I settled down somewhere in retirement. I can't be travelling internationally (what I intend to do first when I retire, as I look for an ideal spot to hang out without employment or money pressure) with that kind of baggage.

This has been a recognized theme of mine since I first started considering retirement. I decided early on, just about 20 years ago, that I would not want to retire in this country. At the time, the big motivation for leaving was the way I perceived the US treats (culturally, at least) the non-wealthy aged. But over time, that has become less of a concern for me.

For now, all I can say about what I'll do with that time is this: I'll find out. I have the first retirement baby-steps sort of planned: Travel. First, around North America, visiting friends and family - a kind of farewell road-trip. Then, travel to the first most-appealing retirement destination my research has turned up; which I will repeat until satisfied.

I also already know my first priority in retirement: Get healthy and maintain my health. I've ruled out every place where good health care is not readily available, or where the terrain or climate .

Retirement will be on a journey of self-discovery. Not having to earn a living is uncharted territory for me. What will I do when there is nothing I have to do? Who will I be when my time is entirely self-regulated?

I guess we'll find out, but probably not tomorrow. 

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 Food and Diet Section

2014 Daily Weight

Today's Weight:         208.2 lbs

Previous Weight:        209.2 lbs

Day Net Loss/Gain:      - 1.0 lbs

Diet Comment

Back to getting the weight off.

Food Log 

Breakfast

Quest bars.

Lunch

Roasted turkey on baby kale, baby spinach, chard and cole slaw mix with balsamic vinaigrette.

Snack

Quest bar.

Dinner
At Sophistications jam session: An open corned beef sandwich with sauteed peppers and onions, and sweet potato chips. Big fail, no matter how I look at it, but I was hungry, and the club has a two-item minimum.

Snack

Ezekiel 4:9 Flax toast and butter.

Liquid Intake

   Coffee:  28 oz.   Water: 94+ oz.

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Monday, July 14 Buffoonery

Post 1232, Day 195 of 2014
- 1,291 days since I started this blog -

Daily Comment

Reasons to hate Facebook #1,239: The person who commented that we should send all the unaccompanied children in border detention centers back to Mexico, today complained about the ignorance, bigotry and disrespect from 'so many' on the planet, calling them "damned knuckle-dragging buffoons."

When I reminded her that I saw some of her past comments as ignorant, bigoted, and disrespectful, she got very, very indignant. I feel bad two ways, first because Facebook is a stupid place to have a discussion about anything. Period.

Worse, even though very brief, was the flash of self-righteous arrogance that accompanied my posting. Stupid, stupid, stupid. At least, very brief. 

And, I'm the buffoon, for getting sucked in. It just got to me, for some reason. It is so elitist, and I don't understand why people identify with the ruling class. The people at the top would feed her to the lions just for thinking she was their equal.

We're all Bozos on this bus.

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 Food and Diet Section

2014 Daily Weight

Today's Weight:         209.2 lbs

Previous Weight:        209.2 lbs

Day Net Loss/Gain:      - 0.0 lbs

Diet Comment

Yesterday's bad eating, absorbed.

Food Log 

Breakfast

Quest bars.

Lunch

A cocoa-hemp-kale protein shake (almond-coconut milk, kale, large egg, raw organic cacao powder, hemp seeds, hemp protein (7g protein), chia gel, whey powder (24g protein), celery, cinnamon and stevia-inulin blend.

Dinner
Salmon burger on Ezekiel 4:9 Flax with guacamole and cole slaw.

Snack
Ezekiel 4:9 Golden Flax sprouted grain cereal with almond-coconut milk and stevia-inulin blend.

Liquid Intake

   Coffee:  28 oz.   Water: 128+ oz.

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Sunday, July 13 Still, no comment

Post 1231, Day 194 of 2014
- 1,290 days since I started this blog -

Daily Comment

"I've got nothing to say, but that's okay." -- John Lennon

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 Food and Diet Section

2014 Daily Weight

Today's Weight:         209.2 lbs

Previous Weight:        209.2 lbs

Day Net Loss/Gain:      - 0.0 lbs

Diet Comment

Yesterday's bad eating, absorbed.

Food Log 

Breakfast

Skipped.

Lunch

Bacon and scrambled eggs with,peppers, onions, baby kale, baby spinach, chard and tomato-garlic oil. Not shown: Cole slaw.

Dinner
At the Dinosaur BB:

Sweet potato-crusted Mahi-mahi in mole sauce, ribs, chili with cheese, corn bread, salad.

Liquid Intake

   Coffee:  28 oz.   Water: 96+ oz.  A shot of Callan Irish Whiskey, neat.

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