Deflation.

In hindsight, she’s probably off by a good 30 lbs… I’m currently as fat as I’ve ever been. And coming home after Thanksgiving, I decided that I needed to do something about it. So I started walking and trying to cut back on the food.

So today I forgot to eat breakfast, but had a cup of coffee with non-dairy creamer and splenda. Lunch was a salad I purchased from Publix with two containers of Balsamic Vinegrette and I ate some spicy pistachio nuts that I bought at an organic food store. My afternoon snack was some watermelon. For dinner I had three turkey sandwiches (made from wheat bread and only one turkey slice, Canola Mayo on once slice only) I also had about 15 mini-pretzels. Washed it down with a Gatorade G2.

Also did a 3-mile walk in about an hour.

The saga of trying to get internet service has been going on for about 3 weeks now. First, I called Comcast to try and install cable internet…. they made an appointment, but I never heard anything from them… so I called the customer support line… and sure enough… they don’t service my new-ish building. Sure, they could have called and told me… but why do that, when they know I’ll call sooner-or-later when I don’t have internet service… grr.

So, I went to AT&T… for DSL service. They set up an appointment for a technician to come out and install it…. but I never hear from them… I call, and apparently the technician came to the door of my condo complex, but because you need a key to get in, he just left. No call… Furiously, I made an appointment for another technician to come out later in the week…

The technician calls me at work the day of the appointment, and tells me that everything is good, he’s going to connect everything that needs to be connected, and I should be good to go when I get home from work.. Well… as you can probably guess, I wasn’t good to go when I got home… Another call to customer service, and they schedule a tech to come out for TODAY..

Tech calls, says he’s at the door… I go down, and follow him around… To the utility room where the phone lines are… then to my condo… then back down to the utility room… then back to my apartment… lather, rinse and repeat. The tech tells me that there is no signal coming into my condo, and that the likely cause is a telephone line being cut.. Nothing he can do until the property management office is open on Monday… damn… foiled again. The tech leaves.

About 4 hours later, the tech calls me and says that while he was working on another job in the same building, he found out that the phone lines coming into the building were all mis-labeled… So was it ok for him to come check my line? Heck Yeah I say… 30 minutes later, he shows up to my door, hooks something up to my phone jack, and disappears back to the utility room… 5 minutes later, he’s back at my door, saying.. “They had your condo marked as 405 instead of 305″…

A few minutes later, I’m surfing the net and sending emails… YAY!

I have to thank Reggie the phone tech for going the extra mile for me… I’m sure if it was any other tech, they would have left it for another tech to figure out, and it would have been another week of no internet service…

I stepped on the scale, and I had lost 3 pounds (down to 233), which puts the total of weight loss at something like 25 lbs. Not too shabby I guess… My thyroid level was at 4.6 which is borderline low (remember last time it was borderline high)… so the doc adjusted my meds to level it out… My blood pressure was 120/80… nothing to complain about there. But the biggy was that my cholesteral and fats were WAY up… like close to 100 points higher than last time.

At first I was really upset, because like I said, I thought I’d been doing good with my eating. After talking about it with my doc, he mentioned that if I had eaten any meat in the days before the blood test, that the fats in the meat would still be in my system. Thats when I remembered eating a fair amount of meat on New Years Eve (2 days before my blood test)… so I’m sure that the test results were inaccurate because of that.

I’ve expressed my desire to get off the blood pressure and cholesteral meds as soon as possible. I know I’m stuck with the synthroid for life. Luckily, my doctor is on-board with that… hopefully I can get a decent blood test back next month and we can eliminate some drugs.

Overall, my doctor was pretty happy with the results so far… losing some weight, getting my thyroid back in order… blood pressure to normal levels. Not too bad I guess. I hope to start exercising a lot more when I move (hopefully I can find a place with a good weight room).

2007 was a very disruptive year for me… It was full of changes, that I obviously wasn’t even clued into last year.

Last year, I wrote this:

“I’m cautiously optimistic about 2007. Hopefully things continue to expand at work. And I’m hoping my personal life settles down a bit, and I can get all the custody issues out of the way. I’d also like to start flying kites again. Maybe even pick up a girlfriend along the way (or.. maybe not…) I don’t really have any plans besides that. Obviously I’d like to lose some weight and start exercising… but then, who doesn’t right?”

Well, things certainly didn’t happen like I had hoped.

In February 2007, I moved to a two-bedroom “condo” in Hollywood FL so that I could be closer to work… But, by March, I had gotten laid off. They say, “The best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry.” That couldn’t be more true this year.

Luckily, by the end of my first day of unemployment, I had gotten a temporary job in Miami and was already attending interviews. So I was feeling pretty good about myself. That was until 2 days later, when my transmission went out in my vehicle only days before starting that new temp job… I look at that 2 weeks as a wash because for as many hours that I worked, it only paid for the repair costs of my vehicle.

I then got an offer near the end of March to start working as a web developer for a major television broadcasting company in West Palm Beach (called ION Television). They bumped my salary by about $10k a year, and I’d be working in a very stress-free environment for my old boss at Proxicom (back in 2000-2002)… Problem was that I had JUST moved to Hollywood, which is atleast 1.5 hours commute time one-way. Luckily the commuter train stops about a mile from my house, and only a few blocks from my office. So for the last 9 months, I’ve been taking the train to work. Often, by the time I get home, I’m too tired to do anything… so I haven’t been going out as much and spend WAY too much time at home vegging in front of the TV.

The biggest thing I started in 2007 though, is my personal lifestyle blog called: http://www.theraceislong.com  Here I write about all the stuff going on in my life, and I’ve even written a few “advice” style articles… My folks get most of their news about me from that.. isn’t technology great? I also started making candles out of my kitchen… Who knows where some of these ideas come from… You’d think I’d be able to come up with an idea that would make me rich… nope.. Not this year anyway.

I still haven’t gotten anything resolved with my custody issues. I do get to see my son about once a month, and any extended school vacations.. its obviously not as much as I’d like to see him, but its better than nothing I guess. Recently my ex-wife informed me that they will be moving to Atlanta at the end of the school year so that she can start a higher-paying job… I’m choosing to see that as a positive thing, because now all of my son’s flights will be non-stop and easier to arrange. I truly wish them well..

I haven’t started flying kites again… nor gotten a girlfriend.. but… well, thats all I’m going to say about that.. I have lost a few pounds though, so maybe this year will be my year..

So, to close up this much-longer-than-I-expected email, 2008 seems like it might be a good year for me… Hopefully my employment will remain steady and I plan to move closer to work in the very near future. Not to jinx it, but I’ve already let my landlord know I’m moving in February… I haven’t secured a new place yet, but I have a couple that I’m looking at, which will be WAY closer to work… I’ve also been thinking about starting my online kiteshop again… We’ll see.

Thats about it.. I hope everyone has a Happy New Year, and may 2008 be even better.

My son arrived Chrismas night, and while I would have loved to spend more of Christmas with him, it was great to have him atleast some of the day. He opened his presents, and we ate a quick meal of grilled chicken and brown rice, washed down by chocolate milk. We then sat down to watch Evan Almighty. Good times!

The next day, we got up early, and I dropped my son off with his mom. I was able to catch the train into work near the hotel where they are staying. Went to work, and was back to pick him up again by 6:30. We then went to the Moonlite Diner near my house for dinner. After a cheeseburger and fries, we made it back home to play the Wii.

Now I’m headed to work. The adventure starts again when I get off work.

I just got a couple of text messages wishing me a Merry Christmas… so I’m going to try sending out a bulk text message to all my co-workers and friends… isn’t technology great?

This holiday, my ex is driving down from Indiana with her boyfriend and my son… but they aren’t scheduled to arrive until Christmas Day, which gives me 4 days of complete alone time. This is the time where I start to feel a bit sad because I live atleast 2 hours away from my closest family member, and most of my friends are off with their families, doing family stuff. So, thats when I start to think about how, at the age of 36, my life has turned out this way.

I really should’t feel bad… I’m relatively healthy, I have a decent job, I live in South Florida… what do I have to complain about. I know there are people in this world that have it far worse than me.

When I was younger and more naive, I believed that I would be living the dream… house, wife, kids… but life takes some strange turns, and instead of living the way I envisioned, I’m sitting alone for the Christmas holiday waiting for my ex to hopefully bring my son for a visit.

Its really hard to get festive, but I’m goung to force myself to atleast put up my tiny tree, and wrap my son’s presents. I would hate myself if I let my son see that I’m not enjoying Christmas.

Anyway, welcome to my pity party…

After an early dismissal from work on Friday, a group of us got dressed up in our fancy clothes and “chiny choos” and venture to a bar close by to get the libations started. At about 6PM we made our way back to the office to get a convoy started toward the party place.

Upon arriving at the place, we got our raffle tickets, took a prom picture, and started the mingling. Now, whenever our creative group goes anywhere, we usually make a big enterance, and this party was no exception. You would think that a group that work 8 hours a day together, wouldn’t be caught dead together, but tha just isnamt true with us. Anyway, I made a conscious effort to bring other people I knew into our group.

After many free drinks and a lovely buffet dinner, our group took to the dancefloor for some boogyin’. Yes, even I did a bit of dancing… Highlight of the night was seeing my friend Ted doing “the worm”, but managing to bust his chin on the floor. Not that I should make light of someone getting hurt, but I could help but laugh.

Saturday, I spent most of the day recovering from the night before. I had another party to attend at my friend AJ’s house, so I stayed in bed until about 4PM. When I finally made it to the party, I met up with a bunch of friends from my last employer, and we got caught up with all the craziness at work. There were a lot of girls there, but none that I wasn’t atleast a decade older than. I ended up sneaking out early.

Sunday was super relaxed. I spent the whole day watching football and keeping an eye out on my fantasy football scores. In case you are interested, I am leading by 2 points, with the deciding game tonight. I have Adrian Peterson playing, but my opponent has the Minnesota defense. So, as long as “All Day” shows up to play and the Vikes defense doesn’t completely destroy the Bears, I should be good.

Now back to the daily grind.