Cheese Sandwich: 32

I can't recall any time when I was able to wear pants with a 32 inch waist.

I can today.

Fortunately, there's a 20% off sale at the Navy Exchange starting the 6th of June, so I can save a little money. I've bought more pants in the last six months than I have in probably the last two years. I'll give it a year and see where I am. If I haven't gained any of it back, I'll give all the old ones to the Salvation Army or Goodwill or something. But my closet is getting pretty tight. 38, 36, 34, 32... Sheesh! What's next?

I can also wear medium shirts comfortably. And I actually look pretty damn good in those "athletic cut" t-shirts. Had to get a new driver's license today, and I actually liked my photo!

I've hit 185 consistently the last few mornings, so I think I'm there. I'd been oscillating a bit before. 185 one morning, 186 the next, and so on. In fact, after my run this morning, I hit 183. But that's just water weight. The upside is that I usually hit that eight a week or so after I hit it after a run. We'll see. I'm at 0430 running three miles, and usually getting Bodhi out for the long loop in the evening, in addition to TKD and Krav on Tuesdays and Thursdays, so I'm probably more active than ever.

It's kind of amazing to me. Even though I'm turning fifty in a few days, I'm probably in the best shape of my life. That's a bit of an overstatement, as I think I was more aerobically fit from 18 to 22 than I am today, but I haven't really started pushing on the aerobic endurance yet. I'm looking at interval training to try and improve that, but I haven't done all my homework yet.

So that's all good news, and it really is good news. I feel great, and I'm grateful for it, and I have a wonderful four-legged, fur-bearing companion to thank for it.

But things aren't great all the way around. I've been a bit "at sea" lately, and I've been taking some heavy rolls. Nothing I'm comfortable sharing in a public forum, suffice to say it's nothing novel or unfamiliar to most people. I was watching The Sopranos tonight, and Tony was telling A.J. there's a half-billion dollar industry devoted to it. A.J. says, "Prozac?" and Tony says, "No, the music business."

But, this too shall pass. Eventually.

Heh, iTunes just started playing "Everybody Plays the Fool."

But everything is connected somehow. Krav Maga has been a rich experience. It's physically far more demanding than TKD, and the contact is much harder. I've been learning to take some hard punches, mostly because I haven't learned how to slip them yet! But it's interesting. Most of us go through our day to day life without taking a hard hit, physically. Yeah, we stub our toes, or we confront an unanticipated illness or something, but it's exceedingly rare to get into a physical altercation where someone is out to hurt you. As a result, we don't really have a feeling for how much something "hurts" and how much it actually affects you. I've found that one doesn't always have something to do with the other.

When I first started sparring with my instructor, and by no means does he hit as hard as he could, I might take a hit to the head, and I'd stop fighting. I'd drop my arms and kind of step out of the ring. But it was mostly because I was alarmed, not because I was hurt. Yeah, it hurt, though it wasn't so much "painful" as "alarming," but I wasn't incapacitated in any way. Mostly, I was surprised, and that would be enough to take me out of the action. In a street fight, which I don't ever anticipate and certainly don't ever hope to encounter, that would be a problem. Lately, I'm able to register a hard hit, but I can keep my guard up, and stay in the fight.

I hasten to add that I still suck, though. But I'm getting better!

So, yeah, the Krav Maga thing is giving me something to think about with respect to some other things, vis a vis how hard a hit I can take and still stay in the fight.

And, in some other ways, this is kind of filling in some blanks for me and in my life. For most of my navy career, it was my professional duty and personal interest to know how to "fight the ship." And may I humbly offer that I believe was very good at my job. I enjoyed it. It was challenging and interesting and deadly serious for the most part. But it remained something of an abstraction. Now I'm connecting that abstract notion to a much more "visceral" one, and it's interesting and rewarding, if somewhat more immediately punishing.

We took several self-defense courses as the Naval Academy. If I recall correctly, we had two semesters of boxing, two semesters of wrestling and one or two semesters of "hand-to-gland" self-defense. But I never really connected with those courses in any larger context. I learned some basics, but they held no real "meaning" for me. It may all be simply the standard "male mid-life crisis," but this all seems much more valuable to me now.

Anyway, I'm still here. I've got a lot on my plate to deal with, though it probably only seems larger than it really is, and most of it remains unresolved at this point. Hopefully, I'm moving toward some resolution. But it eats up most of my spare processor cycles and so I have little to say about much else.

Mac: It Goes to Eleven

Okay, I just wanted to use that title for the inevitable update to Mac OS X 10.4.11. Sure, 10.4.10 isn't out yet, but it's a long time 'til October. I bet there'll be a .11 release.

Now if there were just a way to suggest that "it needs more cowbell," my day would be complete.

A Couple of Glimmers

I've been out walking Bodhi already, and let me just say again that it's great to be back home, and I think my four-legged, fur-bearing companion feels the same way.

I read a couple of stories, actually, I heard one on NPR, last week that kind of made me feel better. The first came as a surprise, as I never expected something like it.

I was never impressed with John Ashcroft as Attorney General, I thought he was a bit too much of a fear-monger, and that whole singing thing was just disquieting. And I guess I regarded him as a Bush toady.

So the story about the effort to reauthorize the domestic wiretapping program, while Ashcroft was hospitalized came as something of a surprise to me. I'm not sure the ultimate outcome is anything to be proud of, but it was heartening to hear of at least a few people in the administration regarding the rule of law as anything more than an obstacle, triviality or inconvenience.

The second thing was an editorial by a couple of Marine Corps generals, taking on George Tenet's rationalizations for torturing detainees. It's a sad thing to have to read such editorials, but it marks how far we've strayed from who we really aspire to be as a people. Finding our way back will take leadership that recognizes this, and values principle over expediency. So far, I don't think I've seen any.

Cheese Sandwich: Home Again

Needless to say, I didn't get everything set up to post away from home. No great loss, it wasn't a great trip and I wasn't in a terribly happy mood anyway.

Being away from home does serve to remind me how much I do like living here. At least compared to Virginia Beach. I lived there for many years, and I never want to go back. Jacksonville's airport has free wireless internet. Norfolk? You have to pay for it. Jacksonville had live music in the terminal when I arrived. Norfolk? Music? What's that?

Twenty years ago, Jacksonville was the unsophisticated city. I remember coming down here in '84 and watching cheap, "authentic" commercials on TV for septic tank cleaners and gun shops and the like, and thinking it was hysterical. Now I think the balance has tipped vastly in Jacksonville's favor, with this city being far more sophisticated and pleasant to live in than Norfolk and Virginia Beach. And don't even get me started on the I-64/264 traffic nightmare.

And the weather pretty much... um, how to say this... sucked.

Anyway, I'm glad to be home.

I don't think Bodhi had such a good time at Pet Paradise. When they brought him out to me, he walked crouched with his tail between his legs in a very submissive demeanor. Once he saw me, he was the happy dog I know. But it really troubled me to see him look so cowed. I don't know what may have happened, and the staff on hand couldn't help me, but I don't know if I want to board him there again. I think he lost weight too, which would be consistent if he was stressed and not eating. I did get a 20% discount for being my first visit, but I was definitely unimpressed.

I got home just in time to join the rest of my family at dinner for my son's 20th birthday. We met at a local restaurant we often frequent for such occasions. This was the first time my son, Melissa and my son-in-law Pat had seen me since February. We have such busy schedules! (Lame excuse # 47.) Received more compliments on my new, much diminished, profile.

And so now I'm back at Action Dave's Cool-Guy Bachelor Skypad Condo, and getting comfortable again. If I have some time this weekend, I'll offer a couple of observations.

Before I quit this evening, I got a note from Kathy Hatfield in response to my mention of Elaine Frankonis and her mother. Kathy also blogs about being a caregiver for a parent with Alzheimer's. She tries to focus on the lighter side, and it seems like she has a good support system, better than Elaine's anyway. I told her I'd pass along a link to her blog when I got home, and I don't want to wait too long before I do so.

Cheese Sandwich: Now With More Cheese

Happy Mother's Day, Mom!

Hope you have a wonderful day. I love you.

(We'll call Mom on iChat AV later. Just can't have a post on Mother's Day without a shout-out to your mom, right?)

Went to the fights last night and watched my instructor fight a tough bout against a younger, much taller opponent. The decision went against him, which is always disappointing; but it didn't change a thing about how much I respect and admire him as an athlete and a competitor. As it turned out, our tickets had us seated right next to his mother. She told us that she told him the only thing she wanted for Mother's Day was for him to win. I asked her if this was hard for her to watch, and she said he'd been doing it since the fifth grade, so no, not really. He came by later and told her he was sorry, but he had nothing to apologize for.

The two heavy weight fights both ended in the first round with knock-outs. The first from a huge left hook, and the second from a kick to the head. Both fighters were on their feet after the fight ended.

As an event, it had some rough edges. The promoter is another guy trying to take advantage of the increase in interest in professional martial arts fighting. The fight was sanctioned by the Florida State Boxing Commission, and the Veterans Memorial Arena is a good venue, though they didn't sell many seats. So it was, by nearly all measures, a professional event; but there were some production glitches that kind of revealed they hadn't been doing this very long.

On a different note, I'd also like to mention Elaine of Kalilily on this Mother's Day. She's been the primary caregiver for her 91 year old mother who suffers from Alzheimer's, and it's been a difficult burden for her for several years now. I don't know what I can offer, other than to say she's in my thoughts, and those who find themselves in similar circumstances are too.

Cheese Sandwich: All Fromage, All the Time

I've either walked or run eight miles so far today. I'm going to the fight tonight, so that'll cut out at least one loop, but it should be at least a nine mile day by the time I get to bed.

Speaking of walking, I meant to mention this earlier, but Jonathon Delacour put up a wonderful post on the subject of walking the other day.

I had to get Bodhi vaccinated for kennel cough yesterday and they weighed him while we were there. I've lost 35 pounds and Bodhi seems to have gained them all. He's at 75 pounds now, though he doesn't look that heavy. He's rather compact for a Golden. But then, I can believe it when I think about what it feels like when he gets that crazy look in his eye and hurls himself through space at me. He packs quite the wallop.

Okay, back to the laundry...

Cheese Sandwich: Road Trip

I've got to head up to Virginia Beach tomorrow for a week-long conference, likely to be only slightly less boring than any Web 2.0 or tech conference. But I'll get to see all the people I work with and for, who I normally only interact with by phone or e-mail. The last time I saw most of them was a year ago in San Diego, so I expect I may hear a few comments about my significantly less substantial appearance. I'd be lying if I said I didn't enjoy hearing that. Saw a guy in TKD last week who I hadn't seen since sometime late last year and he seemed pretty astonished. Then he quickly inquired, "it's not the chemo or something?" I assured him it wasn't.

And, as of yesterday, we're at 187 and still headed south.

Didn't do any sparring on Thursday. Our usual Krav instructor was off getting his physical for his fight tonight, so our other instructor handled the class, which turned out to be only myself and Mr. C. We did ground-fighting instead of sparring.

Mr. C. is probably something on the order of 6'4" tall, maybe 240 - 250 pounds. Which kind of makes him something of an immovable object, and seemingly countless push-ups notwithstanding, I'm by no means an irresistible force. But that's the whole point of the training, to teach you how to move someone bigger and stronger than you. Suffice to say, it's a lot of work until you master the techniques, and I'm by no means a master of anything. Got a nice big bruise on the back of my arm though.

Anyway, I've got to be away from here for several days, which kind of raises the issue of what to do about Bodhi. It turns out there's a very nice boarding facility called Pet Paradise, which is something of a resort environment for dogs. My neighbors board their dogs there, and have nothing but praise for the place. And since Bodhi is this man's best friend, and I can't take him with me, well then that's where he'll go. One of my neighbors will look in on the cats, who will probably enjoy the run of the house without the dog around.

The other potential challenge will be motivating myself to keep moving without my canine personal trainer by my side. But I figure I can push myself for a few days without a furry face with a tennis ball in his mouth to get me off my ass. In that vein, this is a pretty cool web site to kind of help runners and walkers plan their routes: www.walkjogrun.net. I used it to check the distance of the big loop I do with Bodhi, and it seems pretty accurate. If you zoom in enough, and put in enough way-points, it seems pretty accurate even for short routes. The small loops I do in the condo complex mapped out pretty close to what I got from the gps.

If I manage to get around to it, I'm going to try and make this Tinderbox document a little more flexible in terms of which computer I use to edit it. Right now it resides on my iMac's built-in drive. I can move the file to my iBook, but then I have to make sure that all the pointers to the relevant templates are correct on the iBook. I may just put the whole thing on the iDisk at .Mac, and sync my iDisk to all my machines. That way I could take the iBook to Virginia, sync to .Mac and have the latest version on the iBook's iDisk cache, edit that and sync the changes back to iDisk, which means I could update on the road. We'll see.

Cheese Sandwich: Competing Messages

Somewhat recently, I began categorizing my posts to a certain extent (or "tagging" them, as all the cool kids say), with the thought that one day I might write an agent to aggregate all the posts in a particular category into a single archive. That may still happen, but it's not a matter of particular urgency to me.

It does happen to resonate somewhat with something I've been trying not to think about, and that is David Weinberger's new book. Should this be a cheese-sandwich post, where I talk about myself? Or should it be a "competing-messages" post, where I kind of point out how I think the "visionaries" of the digital age are selling us a bill of goods? Well, maybe it's just "miscellaneous."

Shelley Powers offered a critical review, which was refreshing compared to the uniformly favorable views of the usual members of the Internet Mutual Admiration Society.

I'm a shallow and superficial person, so I haven't liked the book ever since I heard the title, Everything is Miscellaneous. I hate these clever, semi-contrarian titles: Everything Bad is Good For You, and Smart Mobs, and all that crap. It's an attention-seeking device, and it isn't particularly clever or original. That is to say, it's a marketing ploy. I like nice, boring straightforward titles for non-fiction. But that's just me. I'm not one of the cool kids.

So, in the cheese-sandwich sort of vein, I dropped by Books-a-Million briefly tonight, and visited the computer section to look for anything new and perhaps useful in the digital camera section, and there was David's new book, shining bluely up at me from the bottom shelf among the books like The Internet for Complete and Utter Morons, and One Thousand and One Things You Can Do With an iPod. Compelling reading, I must say. So, against my better judgement, I picked the thing up and thumbed through it. I can't say I gave it the kind of in-depth scrutiny that the towering intellect that is Robert Scoble has, but, you know, I read some of the sentences, maybe a paragraph or two. So this doesn't qualify as a review, just some impressions I formed looking at something I wasn't prepared to spend $25.00 or, more importantly, much of my time on.

I would say, first, that The neutrality of this book is disputed. I looked briefly, but sincerely, for any sort of cautionary exposition, any explication of the potential downside to the phenomenon David is describing. I found none. Maybe I missed those parts. Mostly I found advocacy, boosterism, and cheer-leading. In other words - marketing. I did not discern a critical examination of the phenomenon in question. I did notice some hand-waving that sort of dispensed with any such seemingly misguided or trivial concerns with the notion that we're "going to get better" at divining meaning in a sea of conflicting miscellanea, because "we have to."

Kind of like we've gotten better at that whole "peace on earth" thing. Or poverty. Or ignorance. Yeah, like that. So, you know, case closed.

In the recent, very civil if somewhat inconclusive, give-and-take between Dave and AKMA regarding whether or not Jews are "a people" (versus "created out of nothing" by means of assenting to a creed), I was tempted to offer a comment in Dave's blog to the effect that "everything is miscellaneous," which, to my mind, renders such distinctions moot. Or at least meaningless to some people. It's all terribly complicated, and it gives me a headache, but we'll get better at it, because, you know, we have to. Or something.

There was an interesting article in last Sunday's NY Time's Magazine about wisdom and "old age." It seems that part of wisdom seems to be learning what to get excited about. Up until this evening, I had congratulated myself on being seemingly "wise" by not getting excited about yet another "this changes everything," breathless exaltation of the liberating power of technology. Then I picked up the the damn book.

I console myself with the thought that I'm still only 49 for a couple more weeks anyway, and I can be wise later.

Cheese Sandwich: Lazy Saturday

The past few Saturdays you would have found me on the treadmill about now. But I'm taking today off. I'll walk Bodhi the usual amount today, something approaching ten miles or so, but I'm not going to run and I probably won't be on the BOSU either. I'm sore in a lot more places than usual, so we'll take a day to recover a bit and see where we are tomorrow.

And my head's a little tired from trying to figure stuff out. As rewarding as that seems to be, though I can't say I've really figured anything out, it is often fatiguing.

So I figure I'll just sit here and point to or mention this and that for a bit.

Ethan Johnson is A Man Who Walks, and that's an inspiring story. I needed a dog to get me off my ass, and I had the good fortune to have a great one come into my life. Ethan just does it on his own.

Nick Carr, a curmudgeon after my own heart, offered this in closing a brief comment on the Twitter phenomenon: Twitter, in other words, is the real "evidence of the verbosity of our culture." But it's more than that. It speaks to what seems to be a growing fear of silence, of being alone with one's thoughts. It's as if there's some great emptiness that we have to keep throwing words into. To hold one's tongue is to risk - what, exactly?

Which speaks to my frustration with our "shoot from the lip," spring-loaded propensity to pontificate pointlessly, if provocatively, on whatever topic has seized our limited attention. (Parenthetically, I'm a sucker for senseless alliteration.)

Recall Heraclitus: "Silence, healing."

We shall be calling upon Heraclitus again soon, I think. Googling that fragment yielded this interesting result. Worth reading if you can stop twittering long enough.

I've been keeping up with Evelyn Rodriguez of late. She's something of an acquired taste, and not everyone is going to be comfortable with what she offers. But recently, especially this post, which corresponded to the point where I believe I'd turned a corner on something, she has been especially resonant.

Shelley Powers has a new book deal, though the subject will be a surprise. Cool. I like surprises.

The only young woman in an office full of fifty-something white guys gave me this book to read. Yikes. (I'm reading it.) She's also an interesting contrast in attitude and perspective. While I can't say that I'm thrilled with approaching fifty, I'm not sure I'd trade places with her if it meant surrendering whatever it is I think I've learned. On the other hand, it's the learning that's the important part. So, maybe I would.

Anyway, that's probably enough about all that. I should go mop the floor or something. "Or something," seems the more likely choice.

Cheese Sandwich: Leading With My Chin

I haven't had a great deal to say the last several weeks. I'm not sure when that's likely to change, but I'd offer that it's probably sooner rather than later. I think I've turned a corner on something, but I'm not sure yet.

I'm sitting here, sort of recovering from Krav Maga class. Thursday nights are sparring nights. I go to class with no small amount of fear or anxiety. This is a practical combat style, which means fairly serious contact. We're padded and supervised, but you get hit and sometimes you get hit hard. I kind of wonder about why I'm doing this. It's pretty safe, but there is some risk and it's not like I need to do this.

Partly, I go because it does kind of scare me. Not in the sense that it adds a thrill, though there is some excitement I must admit. But it's not a thrill-seeking kind of thing. One of the things I like is that it forces me to focus on something, because if I'm not paying attention, I'll pay for it in pain. Sometimes I do even if I am paying attention. But then I learn something too. And maybe that's why I'm doing it, because there's something I need to learn.

Last week I learned that when I threw my jab, I lifted my chin and when I brought my hand back, I didn't keep it up high enough to protect me. That's two mistakes, and I paid dearly on the first one. So this week I was focusing on trying to keep my chin to my shoulder when I threw the jab, hopefully taking any counter to the top of my head instead of my chin. This week I learned that when fighting a leftie (I'm right-handed.), I want to use my footwork to keep me to the outside of his lead leg. That helps keep his power hand (the left) either out of range, or at the edge of his range.

But it's hard to keep two new ideas in mind when you're kind of sucking wind. I didn't do too bad tonight, but I'm still feeling one of those shots that reminded me to keep my chin on my shoulder. On the other hand, I'm learning to take a punch, or that a shot to the head isn't necessarily something that demands that I stop what I'm doing and kind of assess the situation. I keep fighting.

Some things surprise and please me. While I'm a little gun-shy when it comes to getting hit in the head, I can take some pretty hard shots to the body and it doesn't phase me. And I can't claim that the impact is being mitigated by a generous layer of adipose tissue either. I spent a bunch of money yesterday buying 34 inch waist pants, including a pair Levi's 501s. I was thrilled when I got into a pair of 38" 501s back in February. I used to not be able to even think about 501s because they were too tight in the seat and the thighs, even if they were okay in the waist. Not anymore. I don't think I've worn 34s since graduating from the Naval Academy. Not that I don't have more weight to lose, and I'm not thrilled with how much seemingly excess skin I have, but something is going on.

Somehow, someway, I seem to have grown some abs. We did a bunch of ab work after sparring tonight and I not only kept up, I think I was doing better than everyone other than the kid who's hoping to make his pro debut in a week. I'm a kiss away from 50 and I'm probably in the best shape of my life, and I have no idea why. I suspect it's Bodhi, my dog, but I think it's also something else. I also seem to have have developed shoulders. They hurt, but I can see them.

Not that it's all been high-fives around here. In some ways, the last several weeks have been as difficult, or more difficult, than any during my divorce. And by "difficult," I mean painful. But I think I'm learning some things too.

I expect that at some point I'm going to try and share some of what I think I've learned. Naturally, I'm an authority on nothing and I make all this shit up, so you should do your own thinking. But much of this account necessarily involves people other than myself, and they're entitled to their privacy; so that poses some difficulty in terms of what I would feel comfortable in disclosing. It's possible, in some ways, that I've said too much already; so it's perhaps too soon to tell if I'll ever really feel comfortable with offering very much. I think I can discuss some abstract things with little problem, but we'll see.

Suffice to say, whatever I may ultimately offer, it will be much in the vein of how to not lead with your chin. But also, and perhaps more importantly, about why it's worthwhile to enter the ring, and take that risk.

Well, we'll see. No promises.

Cheese Sandwich: 189

Finally broke through the bottom of the 190s. Yours truly now tips the scales at 189. Hit it first on Saturday morning, but I cheated. I weighed myself after I'd run three miles. This morning was my regular weigh-in.

I'd been experiencing some cramping, and weakness in my legs. Turns out it was likely a potassium deficiency. A few bananas, and I seem to be good to go.