No lie. Sandra just emailed me (we communicate very intimately, my wife and I) and told me that I’m getting a raise!
Reading between the lines, though, I see that she expects me to earn more money in order to justify it. THERE ARE ALWAYS STRINGS ATTACHED. It’s hard enough working for The Man without The Man being my woman.
–Howard
p.s. I love you, Sandra!
Upshot: Brigham Young University student Kim Yeoman, who suffers from spina bifida, got a chance to trek up a mountain — hauled by BYU football players and other volunteers. At the top end of the trip, which was organized by a visiting professor as part of an ongoing project funded by the Bureau of Land Management, she got to hold a sleeping baby black bear.
My Take: Heartwarming. Our distant ancestors would have done it differently, though. They would have hauled her up the hill and tossed her into the cave for the bears to eat.
See? I should never be allowed to comment on heartwarming news.
Even with GWAVAMan out of the way, my plate is still pretty full. The Penguicon folks need some artwork from me this week, as do the Aegis folks. There are still five birthday pieces to crank out, too.
Oh, and the buffer has dropped to 12. It needs to be at 21 or better by April 18th, so I can relax at Penguicon.
And then there are the desktops I’m doing for the GroupWiseR guys, a T-shirt commission for My Buddy Mike At Novell, and a stack of Warning Signs for this dude at Microsoft.
Ideally, I’ll get it all done this week. You know, if I sit RIGHT HERE and crank until it’s done, I can lose all the weight I want to just by virtue of not eating. I’ll call it the “I’m too busy to get fat” diet, write a book about it, and my money troubles will be a thing of the past.
Time to stop typing and start dieting.
–Howard
It occurs to me that many of you may be envious of my 187.5lb weight, and might be wondering why I’m stressed about it.
1) My lean weight is closer to 155. And that’s not “0% fat” lean. That’s “healthy” lean. I’m carrying 30 lbs I shouldn’t be.
2) I’m only 5′ 6″. I may seem larger-than-life on the internet, but I’m really a small guy. You could fit three of me into a Chris Crosby, and still have room for the puppies he claims to be made of.
3) My father was overweight for the better part of 15 years, and died from a heart attack back in 1988. He was 5′ 11″, and never got his weight below about 210 (at least not during my lifetime). It never got much higher than 230, either, so it’s not as if he was grossly obese. He was a very active guy, but never took very good care of himself. This killed him, and left him unable to take care of ANYBODY.
So… I’m not going to let that happen to me. I could still get hit by lightning, or assassinated by sapient racist koalas, but the reaper is going to have to go out of his way and WORK for it if he’s going to claim me early.
I’ve already had a heart attack. It wasn’t congestive, so it “doesn’t count” as a heart attack. It was 1999, and I’d been dieting and exercising a LOT that year. Then I got the flu, and the flu virus infected the myocardium, causing it to swell up, and I checked myself into the hospital with chest pains. It turns out that myocarditis typically kills guys my age, because they have a little bit of blockage that nobody is worried about, and then the swelling puts them way past the threshold for congestive heart failure.
At the time of my little visit to the hospital, my cholesterol was nice and low (100, 75/25) and I was “way too healthy to be in here” (according to the nurses). I need to get back to that level of health so I can have a little more piece of mind. I don’t want to shuffle around the mortal world forever, but do want to stick around long enough for grandchildren, and maybe a great-grand or two. That’s something neither of my parents managed to pull off.
I’m not looking for sympathy here (“You poor orphan! Here, have some more gruel.”) I’m just explaining things so they’re a bit clearer. And with that out of the way, it’s time for a breakfast of soft-boiled eggs and crispy bacon. Gruel is too high in carbs, even if you leave out the sugar us orphans never learned the taste of.
–Howard