I had the opportunity to have some ice cream tonight, and since I haven't had any in a long time and I've been very consistant with my workouts, I decided to reward myself and indulge... just a little. A few spoonful's later and I had to force myself to stop.

Ten minutes have passed and right now I'm feeling like CRAP. My stomach is rejecting the unhealthy foreign substance. It feels like the stomach bug all over again!

Damnit, you idiot. You need to be stronger than that!

It’s amazing how much a simple thing like this can make you feel as if all your hard work has gone straight down the drain. I feel as if I’m suddenly 15lbs heavier around my mid-section. But when I look in the mirror, what I see isn’t what I’m feeling. A very odd psychological phenomenon that I’ve never experienced before. I’ll bet its based on the same neurological processes that affect anorexic and bigorexic people.

Akmai.net, my web hosting company, has picked up another customer (thanks Tom!), bringing the total customers to 7 and total hosted domains to 28. I've decided to add a link to akmai.net on my links section. If you, or anyone you know is looking for web hosting, I'd appreciate a refferal. I can be extremely flexible with package options and will answer any questions you have about the process. Send me an email if you'd like more information.

Because of yesterday's missed train, I left the office 40 minutes ahead of time today, instead of the normal 25 - 30 minutes. I arrived at the orange line's downtown crossing stop only to watch the people pile up. Usually the subway train arrives within 5 minutes (10 minutes max). But 5 minutes passes, then 10, then 15. "Great, the train leaves at 6:25pm and it's already 6:15!" I see that plenty of other people in the crowd were annoyed that they were about to miss their train, so I wasn't alone. People would lean over the edge of the walkway looking in the direction the subway train would come, as if peering down the tracks would somehow make the train arrive faster.

There always seems to be a competition between who can get in front of the subway trains doors first. The past few days I've been pretending that I have a physic ability to "guess" where exactly on the walkway the trains doors will stop. Three days in a row, my "guesses" were all correct, not one miss. Today, I did it again, and somehow, I was able to feel exactly where the trains doors would stop on the walkway. As I'm walking down the corridor, along the edge of the tracks, I clear my mind and look down at the walkway. When my mind suddenly picks a place, I stop and stand there facing the tracks. When the train flies by and eventually comes to a stop, I'm standing right in front of a door! Pretty cool.

Anyhow, myself and a load full of other passengers stepped off the subway train at North Station and bolted for the train station; a good 3 minute walk from the subway stop, up 3 flights of stairs. At 6:35 I get to the train station and quickly glance at the TV screen to see what track the Lowell train is on, sure as anything that it's already left. To my surprise, it says "Lowell -- Delayed"! The train finally arrives at 6:40.

A few days ago I swapped the computer case for my Windows box with a much more quiet and roomy replacement. Now I can sleep without hearing the roar of a power supply and extra fans. For some strange reason though, my sound no longer works. I'm guessing it might have something to do with the placement of the additional Firewire card I have in my PC. I'm not sure which PCI slots the cards were in, but I know the order is differnet. That's the only thing that's changed since I replaced the case, so I can't think of anything else that could have caused that problem. I don't have the time, or the need, to fix it right now.

I missed Wednesday's leg workout, so I completed it this morning. Tomorrow is an arm's and upper body day. Tomorrow will mark the 4th complete week I have followed this workout routine. I completed the interval cardio the first two weeks, but quit on the third week because my knee's were feeling too much stress. I can already see huge changes in my lean body mass and my body fat level has dropped significantly in the past 4 weeks. I might take pictures tomorrow to compare to the ones I took before I started this routine.

I've always wanted to travel, to see the world and explore the places I've never seen. The only thing I've felt holding me back are the responsibilities that I am already committed to; basically work and the houses I own. I realized that a way to make my dream come true may be to take one month out of each year, and spend it traveling to a new place. Scotland one year, Japan, Australia, China, Jamaica, Romania (this picture triggered this idea), Brazil, Indonesia, India, or Vietnam another year, and so on. I think a whole month exploring each place would be sufficient. For the bigger places that require more time, I could revisit them another year.

I had thought of taking four smaller trips, every three months, but that would be more difficult to plan and making arrangements for when I'm gone would be more of a hassle. If I know I'll be gone for one month, each year, then I can plan ahead; pay bills ahead of time, notify work ahead of time, etc. I figured about $4000 per trip should be enough for all expenses. Obviously, I would keep things simple and conserve money wherever possible. $4000 for a one month trip each year would mean I'd need to set aside $360 a month, or $90 per week.

Since I'm still working on fixing my current financial position, I'd probably start this plan next year, or start saving for it towards the end of this year. As a side thought, I could have a little voting area on my blog that allows my visitors to vote on my next trip's destination. You get to choose where I go. Then I'd keep a daily journal, complete with pictures and maybe even a few video clips, and post them on my blog whenever I get a chance.

I took the boxes of books out of my shed and stacked them on my new bookcase. This is only half of all the books I own; the rest are on a bookshelf in my office. The books you see laying down are actually flatting the pages of a couple of books that were bent in storage.

Wow, the days are just flying by. I've been really busy working on a programming project for Aerva, so I haven't had a chance to write a post. I just noticed it's been four days since my last post, so I thought I'd better stop putting it off.

I decided to cancel my Blackberry service all together, buy a Nextel i560, and save myself $60 a month on my phone bill. I was very close to switching to a T-Mobile Blackberry, but I realized that the instant email on my phone was more a luxury than a necessity. Combine the $60 I'm now saving on my phone bill with the $30 I'm saving by taking the train into Boston, and thats a whole $90 a month ($1080 a year) that's now going in my savings account.

The days have been hot, and I love it! Sometimes I'll be sitting in my truck, sweating from the heat, and I will reach for the A/C switch. Then I stop. "Remember a few months ago? You were freezing and wishing for 90 degree weather! Now you have 90 degree weather and you want the A/C!?". I love the heat.

My chiropractor hadn't seen me in about 2 months. He said my muscles grew exponentially and that I "looked jacked". Hah, good to know. It's hard to see physical changes in yourself when you see yourself everyday. If anyone could see changes, it would be him. Speaking of workouts, I thought I should mention that I've stopped the interval cardio. I completed it two weeks in a row. Now on my third week, I've decided to do intense mountain biking for 30 - 40 minutes instead.

I was mountain biking in the Dracut State Forest today and I tell you, the horseflies were unforgiving. I quite literally had 5 - 10 of them swarming around my head at any one time. It helped me constantly keep in motion, hoping to get away from them, but that didn't work. A couple times while I was riding down a hill, going about 15 mph, I looked behind me and saw the swarm chasing me! Seriously. A few times I was able to outrun them, going 20 mph, but every time I slowed down more seemed to magically appear.

I upgraded my laptop (Thinkpad T41) last night to Ubuntu's latest release, Dapper. I was hoping a newer version of the wireless drivers (IPW2100) would resolve an issue I was having with the wireless card randomly dropping the connection. So far, the upgrade seems to have fixed it. I did have one complaint about the upgrade. I had modified a color scheme for GVIM to color my folds. When VIM/GVIM was upgraded, it replaced the color scheme with a new copy. Also, for some strange reason, the newer version of VIM didn't like the path setting in my .vimrc and I needed to remove it (or change it, I can't remember).

Thinking about all the stuff going on in my life right now gives me a headache. I keep telling myself to take a deep breath (and then I take one), but the deep breath doesn't feel deep enough to relax me. I'm finding more and more ways to save money, but I keep being reminded how many things are unnecessarily costing me money. The property on 53 Ware street was a mistake. Wait, it wasn't a mistake but rather bad timing. I will feel as if a huge stone has been lifted off my back once that property has been sold.

The lawyer, who I paid $1850 to evict the tenant upstairs from me, called the other day. He said the sheriff called him and said there was a problem with the service, and so now the court date has been moved from the 13th to the 28th. Another two weeks of no rent and listening to screaming and bitching people upstairs.

Gas was at $3.09 today. I stopped by the gas station that usually has the cheapest gas on any given day. It was $3.09. Filled my tank up; $95. Later in the day I drove by the gas stations in Drumhill (Chelmsford), where the prices are usually the most expensive; $2.98 a gallon.

Headaches seem to be back. Probably because I can't seem to kill the goddamn coffee habit.

Green tea, you idiot!

Sunday evening I had planned out my entire day for Monday. I had my schedule filled from 10am until 5pm with things I needed to do and I set reminders 5 minutes before each event. The following day I went through each of the scheduled items, adjusting the schedule when necessary to fit in anything unexpected that came up. When 5pm rolled by, I couldn't believe how fast the day seemed to have passed. I had finished 90% of what I set out to do. It was a good feeling.

While at work today, I found a very nice site explaining Linux file permissions. I had always struggled to understand the three octal digit method of setting file permissions but now its as clear as day and as easy as 4 + 2 + 1!

I was on the treadmill this morning, doing my Tuesday interval routine. This is my second week on this new workout routine and I must say, the aerobic part is certainly the most challenging. About 10 minutes into the workout, while running at 7 MPH, I tripped. And I'm not talking about a little mis-step. I had to grab the handle bars to prevent myself from slamming headfirst into the spinning belt. I jumped back up and continued running, without even skipping a beat. "That was weird" I said to myself. Then it happen again a few minutes later! I don't know if it was the shoes I was wearing or maybe a lack of energy causing me to feel dizzy and loose my balance.

This morning's run felt unusually difficult; and it was supposed to be the easiest aerobic workout this week! Maybe I'm still adjusting to the morning workout schedule. I need to time my breakfast and morning protein shake a little better. As I was running on the treadmill, the only thing that kept me going was counting down the minutes until I was done. "Fifteen minutes left. Comon' its only fifteen minutes. Fifteen minutes and you don't have to run for another 48 hours. What's fifteen minutes out of your entire day?! Just do it!" The less time I have until I'm done, the less it makes sense to give up. No matter how hard it hurt, no matter how sore I was, no matter how bad the cramp in my side was bothering me, giving up was not an option. The end was in sight and I knew exactly what I needed to do to get there.

I've been trying to decide whether I should buy a new phone. My Nextel Blackberry 7520 seems to have crappy reception ever since Sprint bought out Nextel. I decided I could keep my Blackberry for email and have a different, more compact and rugged, phone for normal phone calls. I'd normally leave my Blackberry in the truck, or my backpack, and just carry around my cell phone. But then I realized something: I wouldn't have access to the 150+ contacts stored in my Blackberry. Any new contacts I add to my cell phone wouldn't magically transfer to my Blackberry, so I'd end up having two sets of contacts to worry about. On second thought, that might not be an issue. Since I'm only using the Blackberry for email, the only contacts I need to store are those I have email addresses for.

It makes sense to go with a different provider if Nextel is giving my crappy service, but from my experience, its not just the network but also the radio hardware inside the phone. I might be able to get a different Nextel phone and have much better service. I'd hate to switch providers because that would involve two separate phone bills and I'd have to transfer my number, which means phone downtime.

I'd like to get the i580 but since I'm trying to be careful with spending money, I'd be plenty satisfied with less expensive i670. It adheres to the military 810F spec's, so I wouldn't have to worry about keeping it in my pocket when I'm workin' outside or doing construction work. I've been very happy with the abuse my Blackberry has taken over the past year and a half, but I've already gone through three Blackberry's (luckily they were replaced by Nextel for a small $35 shipping fee) and I have a feeling at least some of those replacements were a direct result of my getting them wet and dirty. I wouldn't have that problem with an i670. 🙂

I still haven't decided whether I'll replace the phone capabilities of my Blackberry with another cell phone. Feel free to help me decide by leaving your comments or thoughts on my situation.

I spent the afternoon working in my backyard. I finally got around to removing the huge pile of old wood that had been removed from my basement last year. It took two trips to the dumpster with my truck, but it was nice to spend the day working outside, in the sun never the less.

Pictures are always fun:

Also, I almost forgot to post Friday's workout; the last of the three workouts on my new routine. I decided to write a post containing all three of the workouts, instead of having them disbursed throughout several different posts. Click here to view the entire routine (including the aerobic workouts I had forgotten to mention!).

Theres nothin' quite like waking up to a chilly morning and being unable to take a hot shower because the sunburn all over your stomach burns when even warm water touches it.

I received a call from CBIZ yesterday, a company that hired me through OnForce to install a Cisco router in a local Applebee's restaraunt when it opened up. They told me a thunderstorm ruined the router and that it needed to be replaced. They told me it was a $100 work order and that the router was pre-configured; I just needed to hook it up. So I accepted.

This morning I receive the work order: $75, and router is not configured. So I rejected it. Then while I was working out, around 10:30am, the guy from CBIZ called me. I told him the work order was for the wrong amount and the job description didn't match what he told me. He offered to change the work order to $125 and explained that he will email me all the configuration instructions. So I accepted. Rushed home to change, arrived at Applebee's around 11:30am and was done by 12:00 and on my way to Aerva. I wish I had more simple work orders like that one. 🙂

My morning workouts are going well. I'm still struggling to get everything done earlier in the morning, so I can start work around 10 or 11, but nevertheless, its going well. This morning was a lifting day, as you know from my previous post. Tomorrow will be a aerobic day. I can really feel my legs and hips hurting from this morning's workout, which is always a good sign. It means I stressed my body enough to shock it into growing (hopefully).

I was at Aerva until 10pm this evening. I spent the entire 10 hours programming, so the time flew right on by. The project I'm working on is coming along nicely, however I am a little unhappy with the way my code is jumbled up. Once I have all the little features and kinks worked out, I'm going to work on rewriting all of the code using Object-Oriented Programming (OOP).

My day's have been feeling a little confusing. I know it's because I'm doing what I usually do in the morning, in the evening instead, when I return from work. On tonight's late night drive home from work, I was day (or night) dreaming about how nice it would be to have three houses. Oh wait, I already have three houses. But that's not what I meant. I'd like to have three houses, one in Lowell, one in Boston, and one somewhere along the coast near the ocean. I'd buy houses with good size basements so that I could turn the basements into a little studios. I'd then rent out the rest of the house and have a place to live rent free. That way if I wanted to spend the weekend at the beach, I'd already have a place to stay! Or if I needed to work really late at Aerva for a couple of days, I could save myself the commute, which would not only save me time, but also gas.

Then again, I was day dreaming. Reality is not quite as simple.