Let's Roll, Fat Boy!!

Ha Ha. Cinnabon and Garcia's Pizza and Grandma's cookies and Lizard Blizzard have had the last laugh. I devoured them them in battle, yet they still have won the war. I'm overweight. I have higher than healthy levels of cholesterol. My body is breaking down. And I've done it to myself.

Since I has a youth, I was ultra lean and skinny. My momma used to call me 'pencil-butt' because I was so narrow. I always favored the streamlined, rippled physique of Bruce Lee rather than the intimidating bulk of a Ah-nold. And boy I could eat! I could eat as much as I wanted and never gain an ounce. Beware the young son or nephew whose favorite phrase seems to be, "Are you gonna finish that?" I was always skinny, and I thought I always would be.

I wrestled all four years in high school. I wrestled at the 112 lb. weight class as a Freshman, 126 as a Sophomore, 140 as a Junior, and 145 as a Senior. (Reminiscing on all the enemies conquered and subdued bring a smile to my lips, but I must not digress!)

Many years and calories later, my metabolism has betrayed me. I know all young men labor under the illusion of their own invincibility, but man. When the reality hit me, I refused to believe it. Now, I weigh 231 lbs. That's more than I ever imagined myself weighing. I remember in the Navy my weight had crept up to 180, and I was like, I'll never hit 200. Ever. Yah, right.

I have been in consistently poor healthy for the last 4 months. I know I need to make some changes on my end, or I am going to cut my life short and even the years I have left will be full of waiting rooms, tests, and bad news, instead of music, love and laughter. And so, my wife and I have taken the plunge, and we are going to do the easiest and hardest thing it is for human beings to do. We are going to change. We are going to change our eating habits and our fitness habits. We actually started last Tuesday, and we are both seeing positive results. I am going to lose this weight. This isn't me. People meeting me now for the first time are probably like, "What a jolly fat man!" That's dead. This guy is going to amaze and astound yet again. I guarantee it, like my name was Joe Namath. I post this declaration on my blog so that the world might know, and see, and perhaps draw inspiration. There are a lot of overweght people in this country, but if I can do it, it might encourage others to do it as well. Take the journey with me.

Once More, to the Breach

Final Exams are upon me. I believe I am sitting pretty after a very tough quarter. I had

• CIS 267 - Visual Basic Programming
  
• CIS 415 - Systems Analysis and Design
  
• HUM 300 - History and Methods of Science
  
• POL 300 - Contemporary International Problems
  

This was a tough quarter, but barring catastrophe, I should earn A averages in all of them. If I can just get through these finals. Oh, and depending on what I get on the research paper for POL 300. I meant to blog that. I meant to title it: 'Oh, the Irony'. But I've been too busy to blog.

So what's the great irony? Well, as anyone who knows me can attest, I have the notoriously bad habit of writing my papers at the last minute. I've done it for years -decades even (geesh I'm getting old). What keeps me still doing it is the magnificent success I've enjoyed. I can't remember not getting an A on a better. I cannot recall not being the best writer in a class. What others couldn't posit in a month of rough drafts, I usually key into in my only draft. But this time, I made the effort to buck the trend. I actually started on the paper several days in advance. And when I finished it, I was not impressed. Ever since my old roommate Sheldon came up with his famous dictum ("If you can't dazzle 'em with brilliance, baffle 'em with BS!") I've made it a guiding principle of my writing. However, this paper left me wanting. I know good writing and great writing when I read it, and this... just left me unimpressed. Figure that! That is the LAST (and probably first) time I EVER do things the conventional way. When I feel that impending deadline, the juices start flowing and like the Lord God Almighty creating the ordered universe out of the chaotic void, I fabricate masterpieces out of fragmented and often contradictory thoughts. I turned that paper in 8 days ago, and have not received the grade. What if I don't get an A on it? The one time I try to do things the way they supposedly ought to be done, what if it bites me on the rear. That would be the ultimate irony.

Anyway, I have to take some exams, so I need to study rather than blog. I am soooo ready to matriculate, Lord! And this next term might be the toughest one yet. I am tentatively taking

• CIS 305 - PL-SQL
  
• CIS 421 - Software Engineering
  
• MAT 300 - Statistics
  
• HUM 400 - Philosophy and World Religions
  

Plus I'm supposed to teach myself enough Spanish to pass the CLEP. This is going to be one wild, crazy ride.

You Underestimate My Power!!!!

--That's what that buster, Anakin Skywalker, said to Obi Wan just before Master Kenobi dropped the hammer in what is probably the most stunning sequence in all of cinema history, and sliced and diced Anakin out of both legs and an arm. I don't know why crazy thoughts like that pop into my head at random, but they do, and leave me without much room to segue. I guess I am feeling a tad giddy because not only did the 76ers win tonight (with Iverson torching the Wizards for 47 and 12), but I coded my own web browser today. Not any old ordinary application, but my own iteration of the KILLER app of all time. I doubt any program is as used as the web browser (save the OS, and they don't count). Think of it... Internet Explorer, Netscape Navigator, Mozilla Firefox, and (drum roll, please!) the DiMWiT. That's my tentative name for it. The name that popped in my head initially was too long, so I shortened it. I thought, "Data Miner, Waste of Timer" -hinting at the profound dual nature of the Internet. People use it to increase their knowledge immensely, but people also use it to dumb themselves down. DMWT. DiMWiT. I know its corny, but that's my baby. She's very primitive right now. She has no back button or Favorites or anything fancy. Just an url bar, a Go button, and the content viewer. It's so freaking SWEEEEEEEEEEET though. Ha ha. The simple pleasures. This wan't even for class. This is just me being curious and nerdy. I am composing this post in the browser RIGHT NOW!!!! And it's Midnight on the dot, so that's a good place to stop. I've got schoolwork for the week to finish (and in some cases, start).

Libation for Octavia Butler

I can't believe you're gone.

Who will carry on your legacy?

...

This is a short, sufficiently atmospheric elegy for Octavia.

---

Those who sow in tears...

shall reap in joy.

I haven't written in a while, and for the usual reasons. But I have wanted to. I've got tons of new blogging material. Alas, it's 2 AM and I know there is no way in the world I can sustain my energy to spill it all out. I am learning Flash -it's about time! I've had this software for over a year. I learned Fireworks and just went from there. I jumped back into programming and let my design expertise idle. But no longer. Macromedia Flash is one of the most powerful pieces of software I have ever used. It's up there with Visual Studio.NET and Sony Acid. Man. I feel so empowered, and I still have yet to finish all the training modules. I have been learning elementary particle physics in my History and Methods of Science course. I'm pleased that much of it I had a more than a passing knowledge of. Some of the theories that are considered the leading modes of thought leave me unimpressed, but I must admit I'm very impressed with what they have been able to observe in such a short time. I still think that science, on the big questions, requires as much faith as any religion does. Maybe someone will come up with a unified field theory for science and pseudo-science, for religion and pseudo-religion. If TOE's (theories of everything) can be applied to universal forces like gravity and electromagnetism and the strong force which holds together the atom, then surely all these thought paradigms can be yoked to the one truth -if we can ever figure out what that one truth is and prove it. I have written some new lyrics to a song I wrote music to a month ago. I called the song Caravan, initially, because it had a travelling vibe to it, but I will have to rename it now. It's jazzy, but it's gospel. I am too tired to post the lyrics for critique. Maybe I can steal some time to write tomorrow. Peace, world.