NEW COMPUTER AHHHHHH!!

LI bought a Macbook yesterday (actually I bet correct myself before I get slapped…I bought Jaylynn’s and my new Macbook yesterday) and I love love love it!!!

Since my laptop died in March I’ve been contemplating what I would replace it with, but never quite thought I’d actually join Apple’s unholy army of self-satisfied hipsters. The sirensong was too strong.

I feel like this computer has already raised my standing in society up a couple of notches. I’ve already started using their buzz phrases like “everything is where you think it should be!” and, “Macs are so intuitive!” I need to go back to drinking Peet’s Coffee, buying fair trade, wearing a fedora to the park, listening to Sigor Ros while wearing a Ramones shirt, and never working out again (basically doing everything according to this website) to complete the lifestyle I’m going for here.

I’m not a big computer guy. I can get around on both PCs and Macs and solve some simple problems just through basic logic, but when it comes to RAM and Hz and graphics cards, I don’t know nor care enough to make decisions based on that. I just think Macs are better-looking and generally smoother. iPods and iTunes are asthetically the coolest things ever created, and they are really just an extension of Macs. I bought your basic white 13.3″ inch Macbook because I couldn’t quite rationalize going as far as the Macbook Pro (nothing about me is pro). I think this will do just fine for Jaylynn’s and my basic needs of internet, email, and iTunes. I’m definitely going to use some of the cooler features such as the camera and iMovie for potential video blogging (if you think I’m not going to flex my biceps in front of this thing, you’re out of your mind). Garage Band is really cool if I were still interested in podcasting (which I’m not). iWork is a really cool Office-like set of programs for word processing, spreadsheets, and presentations that actually looks a lot better (and was a lot cheaper) than buying Office (one of the features of Pages is a template for a screenplay, which means I should probably write a screenplay). I also got a free HP printer/copier/scanner, which we needed anyway.

Molly potentially got the better end of the deal with her free iPod Touch. She set that up yesterday and it’s just about as badass as we had hoped. The internet looks amazing on it and the touchscreen is so cool.

I had to work in Falmouth for 4 and a half hours last night to make some extra money to cut down on the cost of this thing, but I’m lucky to have the luxery of doing that.

All in all, yesterday was great. The sun is a little brighter, music sounds a little better, and the clouds are a little fluffier. One more step up the social ladder.

In other news, I finished The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein, which is a book basically anyone will love. Told from the perspective of a dog, it’s both a sad, funny, and heartwarming book reminiscient of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime. Check out the premise and reviews on Amazon. Now I’m moving on to the book version of I Am Legend and then Guns, Germs, and Steel plus a couple of dysphagia textbooks I should have bought in grad school but can now expense them. (See, when you own a Mac, you must always be learning!)

Peace.

Chest + Rambling

Yesterday at work actually went pretty well. I did the new evals while giving the new therapist most of the treatments for the day, which left me by myself most of the time and I got a lot done. So while not perfect, the work week is off to a good start.

Chest last night was really good, too:

inclines:

• 135 x 12 x 2 (warm-up)
• 170 x 3 x 1 (easy)
• 195 x 3 (4 with spot) x 1

declines:

• 135 x 12 x 2 (warm-up)
• 185 x 6 x 1
• 215 x 2 x 1 (actually pretty hard, but I left a couple reps in the tank)
• 230 x 3 (4 with spot) x 1 (surprised I got that much)

flat dumbbells:

• 65s x F x 5

incline Hammer Strength machine:

• 135 x 12 x 1 (warm-up)
• 185 x 7 x 1
• 185 x 6 x 1
• 185 x 5 x 1

dips:

• bodyweight x F x 3

Numbers went up on the major stuff, though I still don’t know if I should be doing more volume, which is why I threw in some more incline stuff at the end. At this rate, in a month I should be done 215 for sets of 3 on incline and 245 for sets of 3 on decline. Not quite my old form of 245 on incline and 275 on decline, but it’s getting there.

Other News and Notes:

• I’ve been coughing my lungs out since Friday despite physically feeling better from the weekend. I don’t know what this is but it doesn’t feel like a regular cold. A lot of people at work have been sick. The cough is brutal.

• Jaylynn called in sick Sunday, so later on that day we saw Dark Knight. Definitely a very good (not sure I want to call it ‘great’) movie and Heath Ledger was awesome. The more time that passes from seeing it, the more amazing his performance was. All I can talk about right now is Batman and Batman villains. I sound like a child. “…and Batman did this and this and this, and he can do this and this, and he has the Batcycle which does this and this…” Molly and I have been hypothesizing and reading rumors about the next movie in the series and who could be the villain. The two I’ve read so far are Daniel Day Lewis as The Riddler (not happening) and Philip Seymour Hoffman as The Penguin (brilliant!). Despite that it’s all I want to talk about, I still think I’m in the camp of the movie almost living up to the hype.

• Some trailers I’m excited for: Watchmen and The Day The Earth Stood Still. Definitely in a sci-fi mode.

• I don’t think I’m going to go into work till 9:30 today when I have a patient scheduled. I just want to relax for a bit.

• Listening to so much Lil Wayne recently, both Carter II and Carter III. It took me a while to buy him as a great rapper, especially since my only real exposure to him since “Tha Block is Hot” and “Get Off The Corner” were his garbage verses on Kanye’s “Barry Bonds” and Jay-Z’s “Hello Brooklyn 2.0.” However in anticipation for my New Orleans trip I figured I’d get reacquainted with Lilweezyana, and man is he good. I still don’t quite get why Time is writing features about him and I don’t know how he sold 1.1 million albums in a week, but I’m now in the Pro-Weezy community.

• I’m about 50 pages away from finishing Jared Diamond’s Collapse, a book I’ve spent the better part of a month trying to get through. It’s about this close to reading a textbook, but it’s still pretty interesting. It makes me feel smart.

So that’s about it in my recent world. As you can see, nothing earth-shattering. Back and a little biceps tonight.

Day By Day Armageddon

Last night I was feeling guilty about almost skipping a workout, but I went anyway. Not sure if it was a good idea because my head had been pounding all afternoon and I left after about 20 minutes. 4 sets of incline barbell bench (155 x 6 x 4) and 3 sets of pullups (3-4). My head was throbbing after each set and I was considerably weaker than normal, especially on the pullups. I left so I wouldn’t throw up or hurt myself. At least I got myself to go and I got a number on the incline bench that I can easily improve on. I’m going to add 5-10 pounds a week on that for as long as I can, which would get me to around 205 x 6 in a couple of months or so.

After about a month of good, hard workouts, last week was a tough one. I only did two workouts on Tuesday and Thursday and after planning on going Friday and Saturday, the heat combined with something that happened at work Friday afternoon put me in a mood. Two workouts still isn’t bad, but I had planned on 4. I’m at the stage where I’m so into it that if I skip a workout I start to feel guilty. The two physical therapists at work that lift (who are in their 40s and are much, much bigger than me) have kids and still find time to go as well as do a few other things in their lives, so that means I have no excuses at all. One of them said “You’re 25? You should be in the best shape of any of us!” That’s true.

Feeling better this morning so I’m gonna go for a walk, go to work for a late shift, and then do lower body tonight. I realized my gym is open until 10PM instead of 9PM so the “I got out of work late” excuse doesn’t cut it anymore.

I’m reading another zombie apocalypse book that I borrowed from a PT at work, this one called Day by Day Armageddon by J.L. Bourne. This is very different from World War Z because it’s one man’s personal account of the disaster, but it’s still pretty hopeless, at least it is where I am in the book right now (I read half of it yesterday…it was a slow day at work). DBDA is written as a series of journal entries which were originally posted as a soldier’s blog at Tactical Underground. The writing itself isn’t particularly great, as it’s based off of a handwritten journal with spelling and grammar errors, but it’s not supposed to be. It does make it feel more real. From what I understand, the author is an actual soldier fighting in Iraq right now (he will publish the sequel when he gets back from this tour), and despite being far more prepared and trained than the average person in terms of survivalist stuff, (weaponry, home defense, rationing), he is still having a hell of a time with these zombies. I’ve got about 100 pages left so I’ll probably tear through it tonight (or at work again)

Definitely doing lower body tonight, don’t let me tell you other wise.

More reanimated corpses than you can shake a stick at!

Based on this picture, the undead appear to have infected a young Paul McCartney.

I’m sitting at the computer on Friday morning at 7:20 drinking coffee in an effort to cure my zombified state.  I was supposed to be up at 5:30 to get ready for work but I just ignored my alarm and didn’t get up till 7. Since I watched the entire game last night (how unbelievable was Paul Pierce? Two weeks ago I said he was useless), I’m paying for it now.  I’m part of the rare breed of 25-year-olds that can’t go to bed past 9:30 PM without destroying the entire next day. I’ll have to go in later today, which is actually fine since I have very few patients to see and I have nothing to do tonight anyway besides go to the gym, collect rations and munitions, and get back to work on fortifying my home.  An outbreak of walking plague could happen at any time so you can never be too careful.

Worked out last night for shoulders and arms and could barely lift my arms high enough to put the keys in the car door when I got out. That’s the sign of a good workout. The usual stuff so no need posting the stats.

I’m actually reading the book version of World War Z after I borrowed it from a guy at work, and there is at least 3 times more information in this than in the audio version. It’s so brutal. I’m telling everyone to go out and buy this book! I cannot stress that enough.

Organize Before They Rise!

I read World War Z last year (well, listened to it via audiobook) and I’m re-reading it right now (well, re-listening to it) after talking about zombies and horror movies with the guys at work, and it is just awesome. I am obsessed with any and all things zombie, specifically the zombie apocalypse, and this book is a stone cold sober look at what would happen (or already happened according to the book) if infected corpses reanimated and threatened to eradicate humanity.

Written as an “oral history,” it’s a number of interviews with characters in the story (soldiers, doctors, politicians) about the outbreak, cover-up, panic, and all around mayhem that was the war against the undead. There isn’t anything really funny about this book despite its title and premise. It’s really more about societal breakdown in a crisis, and covers things like racism, capitalism, nuclear war, and general bureaucratic bullshit. I read that it’s going to be made into a movie in 2010 by Brad Pitt’s company and I’ve heard the script described as “Children of Men with zombies,” which means very serious and murky. Granted, I didn’t like Children of Men, but then again it didn’t have any zombies in it.

If World War Z scares you as much as it scares me, I suggest you pick up Max Brooks’ other book The Zombie Survival Guide for these tips on saving your own ass when this horrible, horrible scenario becomes very real:

Top 10 Lessons for Surviving a Zombie Attack:

1. Organize before they rise!
2. They feel no fear, why should you?
3. Use your head: cut off theirs.
4. Blades don’t need reloading.
5. Ideal protection = tight clothes, short hair.
6. Get up the staircase, then destroy it.
7. Get out of the car, get onto the bike.
8. Keep moving, keep low, keep quiet, keep alert!
9. No place is safe, only safer.
10. The zombie may be gone, but the threat lives on.

We Fly High

Tuesday morning, April Fool’s Day.  I only have to work for 2 hours in Bourne before driving to Andover for a mentee seminar from 12:30.  Always good to have something like this to break up the montony of work (and great to get reimbursed for gas mileage).

I did really enjoy my job yesterday, though.  I met my productivity and was pretty busy all day, but with fewer patients I got to see some of them for a longer amount of time.  Usually I see each one for 30 minutes, whether all at once or broken up over a couple times throughout the day, but I saw a few for 45 and one for 75.  I’m officially caught up on all paperwork and I felt pretty good about being there overall.  The week is off to a good start.

Also off to a good start this week is the gym.  I worked really hard yesterday morning both with the weights and on the treadmill for a total of 45 minutes and it really jump-started my mood for the day.  I haven’t weighed myself, but this is definitely the leanest I’ve felt in a very long time.  I’m down to the 6th hole on my belt.  I would guess 191-192 pounds.  I’ll keep this up for the week and then weigh myself on Saturday.

I will be picking up extra hours at a home in Falmouth starting Thursday, and I’ve committed to 3-4 hours on those evenings and then whatever weekends I am interested in getting.  Depending on what I have planned from weekend to weekend, I’ll probably try for a couple Saturdays/Sundays a month for a few hours.  My last couple paychecks have been pretty awesome and it’s hard to pass up this kind of money when it’s being offered so readily.  After doing the math about how much just 4-6 extra hours of work per week would do to my yearly salary, it’s pretty amazing.  Considering Jaylynn and I are getting married, looking at apartments, planning on a buying a house within a year of getting married, looking around at more practical cars, and just generally enjoying improving our quality of life, it really helps to put as much money away as possible.  I hate to look materialistic, but it’s a nice self-esteem boost, too.  Time to make it rain.

I’m reading two new books that came from Amazon yesterday: William Martin’s Back Bay and an Ernst & Young financial planning guide.  I really enjoyed The Lost Constitution and I finished the Kiplinger book I got for Christmas, I anticipate these being good time-fillers.

Off to work, then Andover.

Things to Improve Upon

The main area I need to improve upon this week is work.  Last week was long and my caseload keeps increasing, which means the amount of paperwork I have keeps increasing.  Despite staying late a few days I have paperwork left over that I need to finish today even if it means a really long day.  I had to stay late a few days and I anticipate the same thing this week.  Luckily I was able to come in Saturday for almost 4 hours and do some evals I wasn’t able to get to Friday, so I made a few hundred extra dollars in bonus.  This week is going to be even longer in terms of time spent at Bourne and a couple of surrounding nursing homes as I put in for bonus time, but that will mean a couple of gigantic paychecks in the next coming weeks.  It’s a pretty big trade-off to cut into my leisure time like this but it’s readily apparent that this is my life from now on.  Right now I really don’t want to go to work.  Typical Monday.

Financially I’ve been much better the past couple of weeks with spending.  I’m only buying essentials, I’m paying off things right away, and I changed my direct deposit so I higher percentage of my paychecks go into savings and 401K.  I really enjoy reading about all this financial/investment stuff and I can’t wait to have enough knowledge and money to apply it.  I’m still in the tracking-where-my-money-goes stage.  I’ve cut back on my pleasure reading (though I wasn’t getting much pleasure out of Lord of the Flies anyway) and sticking to the Kiplinger book for now.  I wake up every morning at 5 and mark it up with a highlighter for about an hour before going to the gym.

In terms of diet and the gym, last week was really good. I did two lifting sessions, two cardio sessions, and went for two 30-minute walks.  I weighed in at 194 pounds on Saturday morning, down a pound from the previous weekend.  I only had a couple of cheat meals last week so the diet itself was good, too.  I just did an abs/cardio session this morning, so off to a good start.

Lord of the Flies

I stopped reading State of Denial after about 50 more pages because I have no interest in reading about that right now. I’m too engrossed in the upcoming elections to be thinking about Bush’s mistakes (though it’s pretty clear reading this book that these guys had no plan going into this war at all).  I still don’t know who I’m going to vote for.  Maybe I really am an Indepedent despite how chic it is to be a democrat right now.  The biggest problem, in my opinion, with the past 7 or so years is that this White House had no real opposition.  It became a completely one-sided government and completely divided the country down the middle.  History might change how Bush and the Iraq war are viewed, as it did for other presidents, but in terms of unifying the country, these guys completely failed.  I don’t think a democratic president/congress would necessarily do anything different for the country with all of the republican-bashing.  When I just think about who would make the country better as a whole and take the media out of it, I can’t decide between McCain or Obama (as it still looks like a longshot Hillary will be involved).  Obama still seems a little too slick for me, and as a person I trust John McCain to not blatantly lie (as much).  This will come down to the debates and reading more about their policies.  Anyway, enough about all that.  I don’t know anything about politics, I’m just on my high horse after reading 1776 and John Adams.

But like I meant to say, I stopped reading the Bush book and picked up my sister’s copy of Lord of the Flies, which apparently a cat peed on a few years ago.  There are a whole mess of high school books that somehow us Plymouth North kids (or at least in my classes) never got a chance to read (Catcher in the Rye, The Scarlett Letter, Death of a Salesman, etc.).  Therefore this is my effort to read something classic, and unfortunately I don’t really like it so far.  I’m about 60 pages in and luckily it’s only 220 so I can breeze through it in a few days.  I guess it gets really violent later on, but I feel like just skimming it.

No gym this morning, I’ll do a bodyweight workout or go for a walk after work.

Feeling Better

Thursday morning and I’m off to work in a few minutes so I’ll keep it short.  I called in sick yesterday after much deliberation with my cabinet, and I’m glad I did.  I wasn’t the walking dead yesterday but if I had gone in I’d have be en miserable all day. My throat is still sore but the general sickness is gone, which is good. I am so not looking forward to working today, maybe this is just a bad week.  I no energy or motivation. I’m dressing down with beat-up khakis, a sweater, and sneakers instead of my usual button-down/dress pants/tie getup, so this is my “sick and don’t care” uniform.

I finished The Lost Constitution and while the ending could have been a little better, it was a great book overall.  I picked up where I left off in State of Denial, Bob Woodward’s book about Bush at war.  Once I finish that (frankly I don’t want to read it right now but I already own it and I want it out of the way), I’ll read another of William Martin’s Boston-based novels, either Harvard Yard or Back Bay, and then follow that up with The Best and the Brightest by David Halberstam.  So that’s a good 3-4 months worth of reading all planned out.

Here’s to a better day at work.

Late Tuesday

Got up this morning at 5, read my Kiplinger’s financial book and The Lost Constitution, drank coffee, and decided not to go into work until my late shift.  I got myself to the gym again, did some extra abs and intervals and came back to a delicious turkey/spinach/feta omelet and some more reading.  I found a recipe in the TNT book for roasted broccoli which I might try in the next couple of days.  Maybe roasting olive oil-coated vegetables will make me like them more.

Right now I’m overcome with another one of those “God, I don’t want to go into work” anxiety/depression waves that sweeps over me every few days.  I’ve noticed that these happen when I decide to go in late, probably because I have more time to think.  Granted, once I get there and realize that I pretty much like my job, it goes away.  Working later always sucks, though.  It’s funny how I never felt this way in grad school.  I always went into school around 9 or 10, then came home around 7:30 or 8 with that addition of research and papers to fill up the night.  I completely leave work at work right now, but this feels so much different.  This is the trade-off for having extra Me Time in the morning I guess, and I should be glad that I got the gym and reading out of the way before 9:30.  I really, really hope in 5 or 6 weeks when it starts getting nice that my mood changes.  I’m now driving through the beautiful Pine Hills development/golf courses on my commute which is going to be very nice once it warms up and the snow melts.  All the rich peoples’ houses give me something to aspire to.

I’ve been listening to a lot of Rolling Stones lately, particularly Exile on Main Street (hence the new blog title, if only I could get the letters to show up better at the top).  I love this album, it’s one of those classic albums that I heard so much about before listening to it that I loved it before I even heard it.  It makes me feel cool whenever I listen to it.  That’s pretty lame, but it’s how I feel.