Sandra, Kiki, Link, Gleek, Patches and I are all safe and sound here in Seattle. Sandra will probably say more about this than I will, since I’m still burnt out from the drive — it was about 90 minutes longer than I expected it to be thanks to the posted speeds in Oregon and Washington being between 5mph and 10mph lower than I was counting on. Oh, and there was a very, VERY dense dust-storm at the Oregon/Idaho border that originated from one freshly-turned field. I guess the cloud is guaranteed to be dense for freeway drivers when it originates on a field adjacent to the freeway.

Tomorrow is Schlockfest. Email schlockmercenary-subscribe@yahoogroups.com if you’re in the Seattle area and are interested in getting together in the evening at the Strohl Munitions Worldwide Headquarters. I’m preparing for it by going to bed very, very shortly.

I spent the first 8 hours of the day wondering whether or not I was going to throw up, and gingerly running a couple of errands.

I spent the next 8 pretty sure that I was NOT going to throw up, because the stuff [CENSORED BY THE BUREAU OF TMI] end demanded a couple of doses of loperamide HCl and lots of fluids.

I slept a lot. Fever, chills, aches… I’m feeling better now, but I’m definitely still sick.

The good news is that I think I’ll have this out of my system by the time we need to leave on Monday.

I haven’t been blogging as much as I wanted to at the start of the year. It’s not because there isn’t stuff to write — it’s because other resolutions (exercise, diet, and buffer-fu) have been more important to me, and got prioritized in front.

Oh, and “paint a miniature every week” also got prioritized in front.

In related news, this week I painted a miniature (and I’ll probably bang out one or two more this afternoon — Thursday is my Play-Day), and I’ve already scripted, pencilled, and inked a week. Oh, and then I scripted and pencilled ANOTHER week, which I’ll ink on Friday. Pulling that off will put the buffer at 57, which is 15 higher than the long-standing high of 42 (which I’ve broken several times since January 31st).

Also in related news, I’ve been back on the “only eat when you’re hungry” diet for a few days now, and my weight appears to have stabilized 2lbs above my recent low of 178, and 13 pounds down from my high when I started dieting in January. I’ll go back to low-carbing after this upcoming trip to Seattle.

*sigh*. I need to blog the Seattle trip, but I think that’s a job for Blogunder Schlock.

Yesterday morning (and Sunday morning, and THIS morning) I weighed in at a recent-record-low 179 pounds. That’s down 13.5 lbs from my holiday high of 192.5, and having done it three days in a row (each morning following an entire day of fairly normal eating), I’m pretty confident I’ve hit a new “fat equilibrium” point.

In short, the low-carb dieting has been working. Granted, I’m not taking my usual “eat whatever you want, just keep carbs below 30g per day” approach. I decided to actually COUNT CALORIES for the first time in my life, and that’s afforded me worlds more control. The low-carb dieting keeps my appetite under control, and the calorie counting helps me decide when to and when not to eat, regardless of how hungry I’m not.

My rest caloric burn is probably about 2200, maybe 2400. I’m assuming that even with what little exercising I’m doing, I’m effectively “sedentary.” So for calorie counting I keep it under about 1800 per day, which isn’t actually that hard. Small portions, four times per day, and I’m usually only around 1500 or 1600 calories. Oh, and lots of water (and faux Crystal Light drink mix.)

Anyway, to celebrate I took myself to a movie Monday morning. I saw 300, and I had popcorn (there’s 400 calories right there, mmmm butter-flavor). This film was a very curious blend of comic-book stylization, politics, and patriotism. I enjoyed it thoroughly. From a historical standpoint there were obviously some glaring errors — most notably, the spartans probably never broke ranks to rush forward and play “solo berserker careening through Persian fodder.” That’s just poor discipline. The reason 300 spartans held the pass at Thermopylae for as long as they did was because they maintained that shield wall, conserving their strength and forcing the enemy to rush THEM. Superior tactics, superior training, and superior discipline won the day — not a few impossibly acrobatic warriors.

Still, I enjoyed the film. Historical inaccuracies aside, there is little doubt that Leonidas and his small army prevented Xerxes from absorbing and enslaving Greece. Democracy and Western Civilization were pioneered in Greece, which means that without Leonidas the world would have ended up looking a lot different. Anywhere freedom flourishes, it is in large measure because rough men stand ready to defend it to the death.

We probably didn’t need comic-book style heroes in a hollywood gore-fest to remind us of this, but we do still need to be reminded.