Thoughts from Tim

Posted 10:49 AM by Tim
Just a quick update on me today.

If any of you were a winner in NaNoWriMo this year, check out LuLu. The deadline is very close - January 15, 2005, but it's not too bad if you're just going to format your novel.

Me, I'm taking this as a challenge. I'm going to edit my novel, and try to get it done and ready by Jan 12. That will give me 3 days to figure out how to get it published and working properly. Huzzah for me. I've already started editing. This is actually day 3 of editing.

Given the formatting I want (6" x 9" book pages), my novel has jumped from 90ish pages to 216 pages. Adding a couple here and there for stylistic items and proper book formatting has pushed that out to almost 230. Given that I've added nearly 1500 words to the length in just 2 days of editing... I'm looking at a book that might just reach 250 pages or more. Somehow, that makes me happy :)

It's a huge push. The original estimate was to do about 10 pages of editing a day. That'd hopefully get all the pages edited in about 25 days. I had about 35 days available to me, but I discounted 10 of them for moving and holidays. To be sure though, I'm trying to work ahead as quickly as I can. Get in at least 10 pages, and shoot for as many as possible.

Even with the other pressing projects already on, I'm pretty confident that this will work.

Posted 10:45 AM by Tim
The guitar thing has been going alright. I haven't had the kind of time I need to devote to it to really get any good at it, but it has been pretty cool just noodling around with it. I need to learn some songs or something. Of course, if I do that, then I'm going to have to sing, and I can't remember the last time I was on key.

The main issue that I'm having with learning songs is that everything that I want to play is either too techinically difficult, or just doesn't sound right. Which is too bad, really. I've also been finding that the lead guitar parts tend to be full of single note melodies and quick riffs. While they sound great when you know what you're doing, they sound like total jank when played at one quarter the speed and with a load of missed notes.

I'm getting slowly better though.

The move is coming up soon. Under a month, really, seeing as it's already December. I'm looking forward to the new house, despite, or perhaps because of, the extreme changes it will mean. I've got a lot of plans for the basement rooms, though most of them will have to be held off until we can afford to drywall the place. In the meantime though, it main basement room is going to be divided into two rough sections. One for laundry/storage, and the other for living. The little room is going to be mine, mine, mine. I'm thinking that until I get an actual door, that I'll just do the bead curtain thing... private enough, but not totally private.

The little room is going to be more or less dedicated to painting, gaming and most of my messier crafts. I'm hoping to be able to take over my old kitchen table... or possibly to build my own storage shelf. I'll have to think about eventual disassembly or make sure that it'll fit through the door. I'd hate to have to move and leave it there.

The plan is to make at least one, and hopefully two wheeled storage shelves that are 4'x4' on the tops. That's the perfect size for playing a quick game of Warhammer 40K. Pushing two of 'em together would be just right for playing some longer games, or for playing some Fantasy instead. Meh. We'll see whether or not I actually get around to building them first.

The main basement part, what I'm looking at is having the TV, XBox, VCR and such all in one media center. The girls will be using this space for playing too, so there's bound to be some couches and comfy chairs down there, buried in toys and half-eaten sandwiches.

I'm going to set up the DDR pad there. Maybe get two pads so I can play some doubles... but I'll stick with the one pad for now. Probably put the weights down there too.

Of course, the guitar will go down there, so the noise of the amp will hopefully be cut by the concrete basement, and not amplified further. Keep our new neighbour from totally killing us. I suppose in summer that I could move the amp out to the garage. Be a real garage band kind of feeling.

I can see me spending a lot of time in the basement.

Posted 10:19 PM by Tim
Huzzah! I am done NaNoWriMo 2004. Another novel of 50,000+ words written. Well, at least there's 50,000 words in there. I'm not sure I'd call it a novel yet. And it's far from finished. It's feeling a lot like a "book two" item too, so I'm just going to have to put some thought into writing up a "book one."

With NaNo now out of the way, I can re-focus on some of my other projects. I've already got a couple long-term items that have been pushed aside: The blanket, my minis and editing are all in there somewhere.

On top of that, I've been told that I must make at least two necklaces/chokers for ppl for Christmas. So, I've got to either wind some wire, or find all the stuff I had before. I've been planning some ideas all day.

I've got a few quicker projects I want to get done too. I started already, and should hopefully have something substantial before too long. I really want to finish up a couple of small, quick projects this week.

And of course, we're all in preparation for the big move.

That's all for now!

Posted 2:24 PM by Tim
So yeah. The blogging thing. Gotta do that now and then. Figure now's as good a time as any.

There's a number of things happening right now, so I'll cover the most pressing ones.

Yesterday, I and my wife went looking at a place to rent. We do things like this on a fairly regular basis. We look at houses and apartments and then we discuss the things we like and don't like about them. Mostly, we discuss the things we don't like about them. Anyway, last night we went looking at a new place for rent. Half a townhome. Driveway, garage, three bedrooms and an unfinished basement. Nice place, location seems nice (though we looked at it late at night), and available quick.

The SO fell in love with it immedately, and I was seriously warming to it by the time we'd looked around the whole place. We decided to fill out an application, and surprise! We were accepted. So. Now we're going to move.

Our two roomies won't be going with us though. They're going to have to remember what it's like to live on their own. We're going to miss them something terrible, but its time for us all to get back on with our lives.

So much planning and things to do in the next six weeks. Got to get the house here ready for use to move out. And we've got to get things ready for the new place. I just know that there's going to be a fair bit of shopping "on the cheap" happening with this new place. It's a nice house, and it deserves to have some stylish items in it. Maybe we'll hit Ikea for some ideas.

In other news... well... I'm not ready to share my other news yet. No, it's not babies. Don't you people know I've had the snip? Anyway, that should be enough for now.

Posted 3:42 PM by Tim
Was into the game store today having a chat with people here and there. Saw this guy that looked familiar, but I couldn't place the face. After a brief discussion with each other, we realized that not only do we both know someone out here, but we also knew each other from earlier in our lives. We both lived in Halifax at the same time, and were more or less interested in the same sorts of hobbies, and even hung out at the same store.

Just the fact that we knew each other was impressive enough. That we still managed to know the same sorts of people, and knew people in our current circle of friends was additionally flooring. Beyond that, that we should both be in the same area, and, more to the point, in the same store, was just freakish. Still, maybe we'll manage to get a game on some time soon.

Just gotta start painting the stuff up. Get back to work me!

Posted 5:25 PM by Tim
Just a quick post today.

On the weekend, I picked up a book on drawing in the manga style. I didn't even really look at it, other than the cover and the title. I think I wouldn't have borrowed it if I had. First, it's really thin. Not a lot in there, and second, there's not a lot in there that I don't already know from reading other books. Still, there was one or two items that I can take away from the book, and that's good enough for me. Its got me drawing again a little bit, and I'm halfways liking the way the stuff is coming out right now. Not that I'm any good at it, but it is something I can spend a little time enjoying. As if I have enough time for all of that though... seriously got to start dropping some hobbies.

I will say that I've managed to resist the call of a couple of very interesting things lately. And that's been good for me I think. I do like lots of stuff, but I don't need to get fully involved in everything, right?

Maybe I'll see if I can get in a little drawing time this evening too.

Posted 5:19 PM by Tim
No posts for two weeks, and so much has happened.

I'm down to 195 on my scale, which is nice. I'm still looking at the 180 number on the scale, but now, I can finally see it. Heh.

I got word that someone I knew when I was growing up has died of cancer. Death's shotgun is getting closer all the time. I wasn't too personally affected by the death, but it did make me think for a few minutes.

A friend of mine is going to be institutionalized. Not exactly what anyone on this side of the fence wants, but there's nothing I can do. I can recommend running away, but only if you've got any chance of surviving in the outside world. Winter is never a good time to run off somewhere. Especially if you're going to be living on the street. The late spring and early summer are the best times. You'll stay warm enough at night, and you'll have months to learn how to survive. By the time the snow starts falling, you'll have either figured it out, or managed to get off the street. That's the hope anyway.

Life is more or less the same. The money situation isn't getting any better. This is starting to feel like the way things are going to be. I don't like it, but there isn't a whole lot I can do to chantge it.

Thanksgiving came and went. We invited some friends over to share the food, and it worked out pretty well. We've got enough left over food for now, but that'll probably change before too long. We didn't bother with the traditional turkey, 'cause we're not that big on tradition. A good baked ham is always nice.

We're coming up on November again (already!) and that means NaNoWriMo. I'm looking forward to it. This year, there's going to be difficult. I'm far busier now than I've been the last two years. In 2002, I had a huge commute, and didn't drive myself, so I could work on the way to work. In 2003 I started out being unemployed, then started with a job that had no real commute, and no free time to do the writing. This year, I've got the commute again, but I drive myself, and my job doesn't leave me with a lot of time to write. I'm hoping to squeeze it in, first thing in the morning. Just going to have to start getting up early enough to get the typing going.

I've got a couple of items running about in my head, and not to give too much away, it looks like a dead heat between vampires and superpowers. I've had a partial idea to write something based on the 40K genre, but I'm just not sure I can pull that off convincingly. We'll have to see what sticks out the most in my mind over then next few weeks.

Posted 11:02 AM by Tim
Well, its been a week since the whole diet and exercise thing started. I'm not the best when it comes to dieting. I've got a long history of just eating whatever I want and damning the consequences. That's why I'm dieting now, coincidentally. Anyway, after the first week, it looks like I'm down about 6 pounds. That's just slightly more than the last time I dieted, so at least I'm consistent. I figure that if I just go on a diet every few weeks and lose five pounds each time, I'll be down to my target weight in no time :)

On a realistic note, I haven't been quite as faithful with both the diet and the exercise as I had hoped. Real life just keeps getting in the way. I mean, its difficult to refuse to take lunch with someone if they're buying. I suppose its not so bad though. As long as I just keep the rest of my meals down to minimums, it'll be good.

I do feel good about the exercise situation so far. I'm a little concerned about a couple of the moves I've been doing. They don't necessarily hurt when I'm doing them, but they do hurt afterwards. I know that an amount of pain is normal, but there's also an amount of pain, or, types of pain that just aren't right. I'm gonna review my options and the instructions for the exercises and see if I'm missing something I'm supposed to be doing.

There are a few other exercises I'd like to be doing, but I'm just not feeling up to all of it yet. I suppose that's the point though. Time to start pushing myself beyond my limits. That's the only way for me to start reaching past those limits, right?

Now for some other news. I've been playing a fair bit of Fable. Kinda cool game. Lotta fun killing villagers and stealing from everyone. Yay me!

Also been playing a fair bit of DDR. I went to see the tournament (well a bit of it) on the weekend. I was blown out of the water by the speed that several of these individuals could move their feet. Compared to me, they're just rediculously fast. I suppose there really isn't any comparison. I have been improving though. I've finally managed to pass a few of the really fast songs. I figure that just by practicing Max300 I'm bound to improve. Max300 Light isn't too stressful in the endurance department, but its definately the fastest stepping song I've got. Enoiugh practice should push me to the point where my feet get faster. I'm just waiting for something else to "click" in my head and for everything to improve that one little notch further towards being good.

In the last, smallest note, I have been considering finally finishing off the edits on the NaNo novels. I think they really could be something if I just focused a little bit on them. There's a story in there, and it just needs some work to make it really shine. We'll see what we see, right?

Posted 3:45 PM by Tim
Yesterday I was doing some DDR, trying just to get a little cardio into my life. Towards the end I was feeling pretty tired, and I thought, hell, I'll spin the wheel and see if I can hit Max300. Then, maybe, just maybe, I can pass it. So, I put it on Roulette, and hit the button right away. It doesn't stop the wheel though, I figure my pad just isn't responsive enough for the A button. I watch it spin for a little bit, trying to figure out where the Max300 is on the wheel and where I'll need to hit it to stop on the spot.

I hit the stopper at the right place, and the wheel slows down and clicks onto Max300, then just past it, then rotates back one space onto Max300 again. That's pretty cool. First try. Usually I can't hit it at all (I've hit Max300 just one other time out of about 50 tries) - I did not pass it then. The music starts up, and this time, I've seen some of the steps before, so I've got an idea of what to expect. It's going, and I'm stepping and doing ok for the first bit, then it gets to where I haven't seen before. Gah. Crazyness in there, but I'm keeping up alright. I know that it only takes about 10 misses to tank the game, and I'm trying to keep that from happening. Surprisingly, I manage to survive it long enough to pass the song. Now I've got it, and I'm gonna practice it a ton :) I am so happy.

On a bad note, my wife threw her hip out at aerobics. She did some move or other and it stressed the joint a little too much. She'll be alright, but for now she's kinda hobbly.

As for me, I think I'm almost adjusted to the new food levels. Not quite so hungry at lunchtime now. If I'm around food I'm still hungry for it, but if I'm not around it, I don't. Its a reasonble arrangement. I've got to re-read the instructions I had for my ab workout. I've got a bit of pain in my ribs from the exercises for the back, but I'm not sure if that's me doing things wrong, or me just being fatter than the exercises expect. Hopefully I'm doing them right. I hate doing an exercise wrong and just hurting myself.

Posted 11:06 AM by Tim
I'm still feeling a little sore in the arms today, but its not as bad as it was yesterday. More weights to look forward to today.

Things are going alright for me right now. Got a potential job offer, but I don't think I can take it. I like working where I am now, and I don't want to give up a full time job that pays alright for a short term contract job that pays really well. While it'd be nice to have the money in the short term, I know that the overall taxes and other sundry expenses would be enough to counteract any advantage in the long run.

Our current financial status is pretty bad. My diet is going to help us out a little bit, since it seems like eating will soon have to be moved to a low priority item. I may have to start scavenging for food. We'll get Bren's weekly paycheck tomorrow, but its going to be enough to just cover some expenses. Things will hopefully get better soon. You can see why the idea of quick money is so enticing.

Posted 10:43 AM by Tim
Well, I'm a little sore today. After a full day of looking around for workout hints, tips and exercises, I've found enough information that directly applies to me and my goals. One of the first things I found out is that the last time I did all the exercising, I just wasn't pushing myself enough to get the kinds of changes that I wanted.

I think, that at the most, I was working with around 40 to 50 reps total for my weights. And that was in the areas that I felt strongest. This, is apparently nowhere near enough. The minimum suggested total reps is 60. That's 5 sets of 12. The suggestion I found was 5 or 6 sets of 12 to 15. So, anywhere from 60 to 90 reps total. Yeah, my arms are sore today.

I figured that given my total lack of real muscle, I woudl start over with the 5lb weights - the smallest weights I own. Something in the back of my mind says that I should be working with something huge, like a 20lb-er, but another something (the bit that remembers the injury I suffered before because of bad form and overstressing) says that using a weight that large would be a massive problem.

Another thing that I read said that there are three main things to do for weight training. Build for strength, build for tone and build for endurance. For strength, the idea was high weight, low reps, long pauses between sets. Endurance was low weight, high reps, little to no pause between sets. The tone one was a nice intermediate, middle weights, middle reps and some pause between sets. My impression was that it would be good to mix up which one you were working on. Do four or five weeks of tone exercise, then some strength exercise for a couple weeks, then some endurance exercise for a couple weeks. Mix it up, cycle the order now and then. I think I can do that.

I've also decided that I'm going to try the diet thing again. The plan is less food, as well as better foods. My wife swears by removing starches from the diet, such as bread. I'm going to go with that too, hopefully it'll work out. I really should remove cola from the diet too, as the caffeine and sugars probably won't help me in the long run. I can't see how I could get rid of cola altogether though, so I'll probably just keep trying to limit my total intake. That should be helpful at least.

If anyone's interested, here's the whole plan:

Cardio (DDR or something) 6 days a week. The goal being to burn about 500 calories. That's about an hour of DDR on Basic with fast songs, or something like 45 to 60 minutes of just about anything else (walking, running, etc).

Weights on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. I've got a workout plan from the internet which I can do with the equipment I've got already. It's focused on free weights, abs and basic exercise (push ups, squats, etc). I am going to have to find somewhere to do pull ups, but I have no idea where something like that might be.

Then there's the abs. I'm planning on doing an ab workout every day. That's 6 or 7 days a week. I might take Sundays just for myself. The ab thing I'm gonna hate, but I know that if I do it, it'll help me out so much.

I'm also planning on doing some yoga with my wife. I need the stretching to keep my muscles from siezing up, and she's gonna be a lot more forgiving than an instructor would be.

All in all, it's a busy schedule. I'll be taking measurements and weighing in on Mondays, same as always. This is looking to be a lot harder than last time, but I think that's a good thing. At least right now anyway.

Posted 10:54 AM by Tim
Health and fitness. Again. Not too long ago I did three months of reasonably regular exercise to try to lose some weight and get fit. That sort-of worked. I lost 5 pounds, felt better about myself for a little while, then got depressed about the whole thing.

Since then, I haven't exercised at all really. Sure, I get outside now and then for a little walk, or I go skating with the family. That's not really exercise though. If it doesn't change your heartrate, or make you sweat, it doesn't count. I haven't even managed to get any DDR in lately, even though I was quite enjoying it. Other items have come up, and I've been just too busy to get the game on in the early part of the evening.

Anyway, the desire to be more physicall fit is still strong. I want to look better, I want to be fit. I was supposed to join the YMCA recently, but cash flow has been a serious issue for me. Lack of money means some heavy issues for the family. So, for now, if I'm gonna get fit, I've got to stick with what I've got.

What do I have? I've got a couple of 5lb weights and one 10lb. I've got a bike, rollerblades and regular skates. And shoes of course. I've got a yoga mat, and loving wife with a fair idea of how yoga works. Instruction videos for everything from yoga to cardio to pregnancy exercises. I've got my copy of DDR (and know a few places I can go to play around others if I want), and I've got just a little bit of desire and drive. I think I'm pretty set if I can just figure out what I'm doing and get started.

I've always been of the belief that after you've done something, you should take a little time to review what it was that you did, and figure out what could have gone better, or what shouldn't have been done. I've given my last exercise venture a little thinking, and here's what I came up with.

1. Three months was a good length of time. Long enough to show real commitment, but not an impossibly long time.
2. My goals weren't really that realistic in the long run. 30 pounds is a lot, and the other goals were far too subjective to really be measurable. They were motivating for the first bit, but eventually became hurdles to improvment.
3. Because all my exercising was done in private (other than DDR), there wasn't really a lot of opportunity to get encouragement and reinforcement from others. These things would have really helped me to stick to the plan.
4. A more rigid diet would have been very helpful.
5. Though I had regular exercise, it was rarely intensive enough to really show any benifit. I need to be harder on myself and push myself more to strive for my goals.

So, I know what I liked, and what I didn't like about last time. This time - I want to do better. The situation is a little different than last time though. I am a little lighter. My wife is doing a lot of exercises herself. I'm a lot busier than I was in the summer. I've got a friend who's looking to do the same as I am.

I think I'm in a good position to get started. Normally, I'd like to wait until the beginning of the month to get started with something like this. I know that if I wait, I'll just put it off, so I'm going to get started immediately. I'm not going to count days anymore, but I am going to stick to about 3 months. After which, I'll take another look at myself and see if things are going better. If I don't count this month's time, it'd be New Year's for the review again. That seems like the perfect time to see how I'm doing.

I figure that there are 15 weeks until the new year. If I could lose 2 pounds a week, I'd have lost 30 pounds. Last time, I had that as my goal. I'm thinking it's a little unreasonable, so I'm going to pick a lower number. I'm going to pick 20 pounds. I weighed myself this morning and I weighed just about 205 on my scale (which is apparently under by 10 pounds). So, by my scale, I'd like to weigh just 185. That looks like a good starting number. I'd also like to be more fit and toned. Maybe have some real muscle definition. This is all subjective, so I'm not going to include it as a real goal, but I am going to keep it in mind for my own motivation.

I've taken a good look at myself, and what about me needs work. I've got good legs, the lower legs especially. Just keep doing what I'm doing there, but a little extra work on the upper legs would be good. I've got a gut. I'd like to say "a bit of a gut" there, but let's be honest, there's enough there that I'd have to be two or three people to have a "bit." The chest and arms aren't too bad, but they're a far cry from where I'd like them. My back's not great either, but its not completely bad.

All told, I'm pretty good on the extremities, and squishy in the middle. I've always hated abdominal exercise, and it's pretty obvious that I haven't done anything to change that area. I'm gonna have to learn to love them though, or find a way to remind myself that all the pain of abdominals is going to be worth it in the long run.

So, I'm going to throw myself into a more active routine. I'm gonna squeeze 30 to 60 minutes of time out of my days and really get motivated on this. I'm gonna strive to do better with my weights, and choose to eat less. I'll pull DDR out tonight and really give it a thrashing. I've got all the equipment I need. I've got a timeline (as loose as it is), and I've got a plan and a goal. I just need to get started. Now is the time.

Posted 1:07 PM by Tim
I've been doing some painting lately. Minis, of course. got to keep on the task and get them painted. I did 13 in the last week. That's not a lot, of course, but these were for the Penal Legion. Yes, new army, so lots of enthusiasm. No money though, so I'm keeping the purchases down to a reasonable level.

I'm bringing them by the store out near work to try and get some feedback and commentary on them.

... a short two hours later ...

Seems that the store guys liked the stuff I brought in. And they gave me a few good ideas for things I can do in tourney. I'm gonna have to give it a little thought, and see where that takes me.

Posted 3:00 PM by Tim
Yeah, so with nothing to do at work I'm blogging. I've read everything I usually read by this point in the day, except for Keenspot. Not sure why I haven't read that yet.

Anyway, I've been thinking a little bit lately, about this and that, and where my life is going. After all, you've got to have some direction in life, or else you're just cruising along not paying attention. That'll get you to work, but you won't remember quite how you got there.

Anyway, I've been trying to play some DDR lately, but it doesn't always work out. I found the machine that's here in KW. It's not too bad, but the place it's in was dead when I was by there. I wish I had a load of extra cash. I'd buy myself a machine if I could. On the "may actually happen" side of life, I am thinking about trying to get out there now and then and get the real arcade experience in now and then.

I've also been trying to get some of my many miniatures painted. They just need doing. I read this one guy's method for doing large forces of minis. Start with one colour, the base, and get everything based. Then, rather than completely finishing a squad or something (which will take lots of time and colours), start with your next most visible colour. Do not bother adding things like details at this point in time. Do reasonable numbers at a time like this. Like 5 or 10 an evening. If you can do this, you'll soon have the whole force done in 2 colours. Then get the third most present colour. Do the whole force in that too. That, and probably Boltgun Metal or something, will give you a force that is painted enough for play, and which looks consistent. Over time, you can take a squad, and add detail or other colours.

This seems like the best method given the number of miniatures that I own that need painting. I think the count is somewhere close to 300.

See, if you want to play in one of the stores, you have to have painted models. That is, you have to have models that have 3 colours on them, and are based. It really helps if you have ones that look good too.

I've been sort of collecting from all over the place too lately. I'm going to pare the armies down a bit, back to a few core units. Keep the Dark Eldar, and the Witch Hunters. I'm gonna build up a new force over time though. A Penal Legion for Imperial Guard. I've always had a thing for loading my side of the table with troops, and there isn't a bettter way to do that that with Imperial Guard. Sure, Tyranids give them a good run for the money, but the guard are just so good at it. So I'm thinking of a penal legion. Take Catachans and paint them in prison orange, and Cadians, painted in blues, for the prison guards. After that, it all starts to fall into place.

Sure, the Penal Legion will probably sacrifice playability for thematic reasons. Like dropping tanks entirely. Who would give a prisoner access to a tank? And we'll be losing out on all the superheavy weapons. After all, you don't want to give them too much power, right? I had to get some Orange paint today to finish off a few of the minis I've been working on. Got to get them done up soon, so I can start with the big painting project mentioned above.

In non-gaming news, I'm still not happy with my body shape. I know, I just got done a pretty poorly executed three month long program. But, I'm not happy with myself, and I want it to change. I realize that the only way this is going to happen is with some serious changes. I'm going to have to exercise, even if I don't want to. And I'm going to have to eat differently. Not just less, but differently. I can't eat the way I do and lose weight. Gah, I just don't know if I've got enough commitment in me to do this. I know I want it, but I'm not sure I've got the willpower to do it. Maybe if I could do something where I really saw a change? I suppose the only way to start is to try.

Posted 1:25 PM by Tim
I've been trying to play as much DDR as I'm able to lately. I'm shooting for a minimum of 1 hour 4 or 5 days a week.

What I've been doing is playing at the Light level. This is, for the home version, the easiest level of play. I usually set the game to this level, and just start playing. Every so often, if I feel I'm doing really well, I'll put a song up on the Standard level just to see how much more difficult they are. Trust me, going from a full combo on a 2 minute song, to losing the same song in about 20 seconds is really harsh.

I've been steadily improving though. Songs that used to be E for me are moving up into the A and B range. That's on Light. I've been pressing myself to try Standard too. So, last night, I set the system to Standard to play, and decided that other than a few "for fun" songs, I'd keep the whole thing on standard. Try out the whole list of songs and really see how I'm doing. I'm happy to report that I'm not doing too bad.

Something clicked in my head last night and suddenly, I understand how to do the three-steps. They're not impossible any more. That's good, because Standard is full of them. And the jumps are getting both faster and more complicated.

I'm doing well on anything 5 feet and less, but 6 footers are giving me an issue. 7 foot Standards are right out. I'm barely passing if I get through it at all. 8 and 9 are total flops. I might get 40 seconds into a song if I'm lucky.

There are a few songs that I feel I should be playing more often. Songs that use a lot of the quick steps and silly jumps. Those will give me enough practice.

My goal here, is to get good enough to go into an arcade setting, play and not only not suck, but to look reasonably good. It is a big change though. Going from a soft pad (which moves as I play) in bare feet, to a hard pad in shoes. Still, it's not so significant an issue that I can't figure out how to get past the differences and still play.

I'm thinking of hitting the arcade tomorrow on my day off if I can find the time.

Posted 10:10 AM by Tim
Day 91. Well, the 90 day challenge to myself is over. I'm even posting on time. Here's the last update:

Starting weight: 210.
Final weight: 205.
Total change: lost 5 pounds

90 days, and all I've lost is 5 pounds. I'm nowhere near any of my goals. I know for a fact that if I tried the sit-up thing, I would die. I'm 25 pounds short of my weight loss goal. I am a little more fit than I was before, but not so much that I'd call it any sort of success.

I'm a little disappointed in myself overall. I don't think that I stuck to it enough to really make a difference. I didn't stick to the idea of a diet, or to a real workout program like I should have. I got very lax on the idea of doing the weights for a while there, and haven't really been trying lately either. Even with the deadline coming up. Still, I lost 5 pounds, and it's more or less stayed off. I suppose that another round of 3 months would lose me another 5... it'd only take me another 15 months to lose the 25 pounds I'd like to lose.

The challenge is over, but I'm not going to give up on the weight loss thing. I'm going to try to focus on DDR a little more, and maybe try to eat a little better. I am going to join a gym, and try to get in on a few classes. Something with some combat skills in it probably. Some more weights (and more varied weights) would be good.

Yesterday was not a good day for me. I was annoyed at something, and I'm not sure what. It didn't clear up all day. Today seems like it might be better, but I have some doubts about that. Here's to hoping.

Posted 11:52 AM by Tim
Day 85. % days to go. Still no closer. There is good news on the horizon though. Seems that a friend of mine is looking to get fit and lose some weight too. We're looking at doing workouts together. It helps to have someone to encourage and support you in your endeavours, right? Exactly.

So, we went over to the YMCA to see how much memberships were. I think we can afford the expense, so now we just need to start looking at how much time we have available, etc.

Posted 10:59 AM by Tim
Day 84. Only 6 days to go. I didn't even bother weighing myself today. I suppose I should have. So, no update for the weight today. I feel the same as always, and I imagine that I weigh more or less the same as last week.

I managed to actually get onto a real DDR machine this weekend. Other than being about three times as slippery to dance on as my home pad, its about the same. I didn't do too bad. Got the hang of it pretty quick. All I had to do was put the idea of embarassment aside, and then there was no embarassment at all. It helped that most of the other people there didn't seem to have a clue about how to play the game at all. They were playing, but all of them were playing on Basic. Even then, they weren't doing too good. So, feeling like I'm better than them at it, I figured that it wouldn't be so bad.

The biggest problem with the place is that they have a very loud jukebox, that is really close to the machine. So, you're playing something, and then this loud song overpowers the music a lot. You totally can't feel the beat anymore. A friend of mine, Oni, plays with the speed mods on. She sets it to 3x, so the arrows just whiz on her screen. I'm way more comfortable with it on normal speeds, so I just kept it there. I can't seem to react quickly enough for the 3x.

So, yeah. Gotta get in about, say... 2 hours a day or so of practice on the pad at home. Start getting good, or maybe get some time down at the local arcade playing. There's gotta be a local group here somewhere.

Posted 4:41 PM by Tim
Day 77. Again, another week passes and not a single post. What's been up? Well, I haven't felt totally well in the last week, so I haven't done a thing. No weights, no DDR, nothing. My weight shows it too.

Starting weight: 210
Last Weeks weight: 200
This Weeks weight: 203
Change since last week: gained 3 pounds.
Total change: lost 7 pounds.

I think that I've grown tired of my long term goals. I'm not giving up, mind you, I'm just saying that I can't see any way (short of maybe a "water diet") for me to lose 23 pounds in 13 days. Even that might not be enough. As far as the rest of my goals go, I'm not really close to them either. Maybe I haven't given it enough of my attention? That's probably it. I've made some changes in my life. I try to eat less, if not better, and I'm certainly trying to exercise more.

I've been missing the weights lately, so I'll probably get at them tonight. I was feeling like I could use a 20 pound weight, but I've probably fallen back from that point in the last week or so. A real workout should help me out though. And with DDR, I've simply not felt like the dancing. I've been a little worried about ending up in a massive cough/hack fest after one song. So, I've used that excuse to avoid it all. Too bad for me, I'm gonna have a bit of a dance thing this weekend that I'm supposed to not look like a total spaz for. Gah. Gotta get in the practice.

In other news, I've been doing some shopping lately. I bought me a pair of Underground England Boots. They're similar to the "No Future" boots under the Screwed Steel Caps section. I also picked up a nice stud bracelet. I've got a little more shopping to do to really get the goth clubwear look together. Maybe I'll drag a few people out along with me to help me decide.

There's the tourney this weekend. I bought the new Necromunda book to try out up there, if I can get some people interested in it, I'll be happy. I figure that it'll turn out the same as the Warhammer Fantasy book I own. I'll be the only one in the house with minis, and the only one with any interest in playing the game. I'll know a few places I can play, if I can just get out there and get up the nerve to talk to new people.

Posted 12:05 PM by Tim
Day 71. Wow. More than 70 days so far. I missed yesterday of course, so here's the update.

Starting Weight: 210.
Last Week's Weight: 205.
This Week's Weight: 200.
Change since last week: lost 5 pounds.
Total Change: Lost 10 pounds.

Somehow, being back where I was more than 2 months ago just isn't as exciting now. I've been trying to keep on with the weights, and I'm just not getting to do any DDR lately. I keep skipping it because of sore ankles/feet/knees, and I'm really starting to think that I just need to ignore that bit of my body and play more. Especially since I'll be trying to hit one of the actual arcade versions of DDR in the next two weeks. Nothing like looking like a total newb, right?

Yeah, I can almost taste the shame and humiliation already. I can't wait to look like the big, fat, old guy on the machine. Yay for me.

Posted 10:15 AM by Tim
Day 67. I did some weights last night. They're starting to feel good again, instead of being boring. I am getting some twitches in the right arm that I'm not getting in the left. I figure that if I had a trainer, or at least someone with more experience, they could tell me what I'm doing wrong, and I'd be able to fix it. As far as I can tell, I'm not doing anything different between arms. So, I must have stressed the muscles on that arm at one point, and they've just not gotten any better with time. I may have to switch to a different exercise form or something.

I've been thinking about Karate. Especially open-hand karate. Something more defensive than offensive. Suits my way of dealing with the world better. I'll have to look into it.

Posted 5:08 PM by Tim
Day 65. No posts in a while, and I missed Monday again. Holiday here, so I didn't get to the computer a lot. Let's say, I didn't lose any weight again.

I did some DDR last night, and weights. I've been slacking over the weekend, so I didn't get much done for workouts. I did go to a festival and stand around for most of the day, so I got some exercise there.

The physical activity thing has pretty much sucked lately. Just not able to do enough to make myself lose weight. And I've not been as good on my diet as I could be. Just taking in too many calories.

I've got to keep up on the DDR though, it's good all around for my endurance and for my aerobic activity. Just got to keep my feet from getting too sore with all the hopping.

Now for my normal life stuff. I'm finding things to be really stressful lately. Work's got me in a pressure spot. I'll get through it, I'm just not liking where I am right now. It's always better for me to be happy than not. I'm always less productive if I feel that I'm being unfairly pressured.

Posted 12:49 PM by Tim
Day 57. Still no change in anything. Did the weights yesterday, but I'm starting to get really discouraged with it all. Guess I've got to find some more incentive somewhere.

Posted 10:02 AM by Tim
Day 56. Nothing seems to be working. I don't think I'm sticking to my diet as closely as I should be. Here's the update.

Starting weight: 210
Last Week's weight: 203
This week's weight: 205
Last Week's change: up 2 pounds!!
Total Change: lost 5 pounds.

Nothing I'm doing seems to be helping. I'm finding that I'm starting to get bored of my weights. I've noticed that I seem to be rushing them, and not really focusing on them like I should. I haven't had a chance to do the swimming thing either. That's too bad really. I kinda like the swimming thing. I do think that I've started to build some muscle, rather than all fat. I'm just seeing that I've got a little over a month left, and I'm not near any of my goals. A little depressing. I figure I've just got to get past it, and I'll be back to going again.

We did a lot of cleaning this weekend. Bren wanted to get things we don't need out of the house. I've been getting near that wavelength of thinking all last week, so it wasn't an issue for me to get into the cleaning spirit. We moved the furniture around, and shuffled things about pretty good. I got to rearrange my miniatures collection during the move, so I got to set things up nice.

I put the Warhammer army into three groups. One for each Lieutenant and one for the General. They look good, but there's a lot of work left to do.

I took the 40K minis, and set them up in little battles. I absorbed Mark's Marines into my Marines, so I pretty much doubled the army in one swoop. They need a repaint, but that's something that I can take my time with. I've also claimed Wayne's Imperial Guard, and they need a paint too. Shouldn't be too difficult, 'cause there's only a few of them right now. Hell, most of everything I have needs painting. I like building and playing and painting, I just don't have time to do all of it. I really should find some time to focus on one or the other.

In other news, I took a few minutes to do a little drawing. I don't have a lot of time for it, and well, I'm terrible, but I do enjoy it. I suppose I've got to do it more often. I'd show off some of the stuff I've scanned, but I'm really not impressed with my own work, so I'll leave that off. If you look hard enough, you can find it on the web.

Posted 3:46 PM by Tim
Day 53. Did only 1.5 hours of DDR last night but about an hour of it was with ankle weights. About 6lbs each foot. Just a little extra effort for me. Still managed to get an A here and there, but no AA marks. Just not able to put enough bounce into it with the extra heavy feet.

My left foot has gotten a little bit of a pain in it, and the knee joints have a little bit of a twinge too. I figure I've overstressed them a little bit. Maybe do a little less time on DDR tonight.

The weights are going pretty good. Trying to put a little more effort into it. The plan is to try to build up the strength a little faster.

Posted 9:57 AM by Tim
Day 52. More DDR. Two hours this time. Legs don't feel too bad today, but I'm going to have to start making sure I do some stretches or something afterwards. I can feel places where the leg muscles are starting to get a little stiff.

Part of the hope with DDR is that it'll help me learn to coordinate my feet better. I think its working, but there hasn't been any sort of test to make sure. Also, because I'm doing it for so long, it should help with my stamina. I'm thinking of starting to go to clubs again, so it'd be nice if I didn't turn into the great wheezing blob after the first song.

I've been trying to work on making the songs on the DDR wheel go up in ratings. The first step was to try out every song at least once. Leave all the D's and E's alone for a bit. Try to work on a song or two to get them to A or AA or (unlikely) AAA. Then work on the D's and E's and see if I can make them better. More than half of the songs are now B or better. That's not too bad really. At least, for me, I think that's not too bad.

There are several songs on Light that I can't get past E. E is the lowest grade, and you only get it if you fail. If you get even a minimal pass, you get a D. Why are there songs on Light that have more than 5 feet? There's a block of 4 or 5 that have something like 6, 6, 7 and 7 feet respectively. Of course, they're also all over 150BPM songs, so I've no chance of keeping up with them yet. All quarter steps and jumps. Gah. So hard.

I've tried bumping up the difficulty on a few songs to Standard. These are the low songs. They go from 3 feet to 4 or 5 feet. I'm not getting them. Gonna have to take the 1 footer, and try it on Standard instead. That should make things go a little better. Knowing me, it'll probably go from the slow paced 1 footer to a freakish 7 footer at Standard. It'll move from just Stream and Voltage to Chaos and Air. If you don't know what any of that means, let me explain.

The old DDR system measured all dance difficulty by "feet" or how much foot movement was involved. The system went from 1 to 10 feet. 10 being freakish, and 1 being pretty slow. I have trouble with anything needing more than 4 feet. 5 feet is possible for me, but I'm pretty bad. 6 and 7 are right out.

The new DDR song rating system uses 5 key areas. Stream, Voltage, Freeze, Air and Chaos. Steam and Voltage are sort of related. Stream is a measure of the longest run of steps. Voltage is a measure of the maximum density of steps. Freeze measures the amount of freeze steps in the song, and Air measures the amount of jump steps (thus, the amount of "air" you get in the dance). Chaos is a measure of how many complicated moves there are (where you'd need to cross feet over, or double/quick step around the arrows. A song can be high in any or all of these areas, and it's all relative to itself. So, a slow song can have a very high Air, if most of the moves are jumps. It wouldn't be as difficult as a fast song would though.

DDR Ultramix for XBox uses both systems, so you get an impression of both how hard certain portions of the song is, as well as the overall difficulty. There! Now you know!

Posted 11:04 PM by Tim
Day 51. I managed to start following my own advice and put on DDR. Did a little over an hour of dancing, various speeds and songs. Not too bad, managed to try out every song on the wheel. Improved a few, still totally flabbergasted by others. Some of them have beats that are very hard to figure out, and others simply have step patterns so complicated that I have no idea what moves I'm supposed to be doing.

I've tried out a few of the dances on Standard mode too, but they're all far and away over my abilities right now. More practice is what I need.

Posted 3:07 PM by Tim
Some thinking out loud follows:

So, I'm trying to figure out how to lose more weight. Main thinking is that I should just be doing more exercise. That's a fine idea, as it'll help me accomplish my other main goal - fitness. More exercise should mean more fitness, right?

What have I got for fitness stuff then. Well, there's the pool, my bike, the free weights, DDR, running and housework. Yes, even housework is something. All that lifting and sweeping and tidying up.

I can see making housework part of the routine. After all, the house is always messy, and there's always things to be done. Besides, cleaning up gives me a place to do all of the other things I want to do indoors.

Time is a major limiting factor. I'm away at work for around 10+ hours a day (counting commute time) and that means that I'm really limited to about 6 available hours of time to get everything else done. That should be more than enough time for most people, but I'm a world-class time waster. I can make copious amounts of time vanish into nothingness and unproductivity on a scale only seen in the Bible.

Still, I'm not limited by my fitness options. I'm only limited by their availability. I can't DDR early in the morning or really late at night. All the hopping keeps the roomies unhappy. The pool has certain hours of use, and it's been rainy nearly every day, so there's not been a lot of opportunity for use there.

The weights I can use, but I don't have a weight bench, which would be very good for things like pectoral muscles and so on. I am limited in the type of exercises I can do. Still I can do them almost any time of day when I'm home, so that's fine.

The bike is good to use, but also limited to days that aren't too wet, and where there isn't anything more pressing that needs to be done. I really should get out on it more.

I do need to step it up a bit. I'd really love to reach my goals.

Posted 9:49 AM by Tim
Day 50. Missed the update yesterday. Here's the current status:

Starting Weight: 210
Last Week's Weight: 203
This Week's Weight: 203
Change Since Last Week: 0 pounds!
Total Change: lsost 7 pounds.

I just can't seem to lose any more weight. Not sure why. I'm far more active than I was 50 days ago, and I'm certainly not eating more. I figure I'm eating less over all. I'd love to think that maybe I'm just building up muscle, but I doubt that's the case. I think I'd have noticed.

I've got to figure out something. Maybe it's time to really start with the serious exercise.

Posted 10:42 AM by Tim
Day 43. I put DDR on last night, and got into the groove a bit. Got a mark of AA on one of the songs, which unlocked another song for me. Only 6 left to unlock. A couple of them are going to be hard to get.

Waking up the morning had me feeling pretty bad. I've had some sinus thing that's been bothering me, and a lot of tight muscles. I'm going to have to start adding in a regimen of stretches. Maybe even get Brenda to show me some of her yoga. She'll be happy about that.

I was happy with the dancing last night too. Got sweaty, but not tired. That's a good thing. I'm kinda hoping that it will teach me better rhythm, and help me with coordination. After all, I'm a pretty discoordinated guy. Dancing's never been my strong area. I tend to describe myself as "spastic monkey stylee."

Posted 9:53 AM by Tim
Day 42. I'm physically tired today. Really beat. Ran the tourney this weekend, which always means several hours (like 20-several) of standing. I really wanted to play some DDR, but I also really did not want to look like a total idiot in front of all the tourney people. So, I held off until I got home on Sunday.

Of course, before I could play, I had to wait for the TV to be free. Also, I had to vacuum the floor to get rid of all the food on there, and clean out all the toys, loose screws and other garbage that had collected. How all that stuff gets there, I really can't comprehend.

Anyway, I tried out DDR. It is fun, though it took me a while to not feel like I was going to fall over during certain moves (ones like stepping left, or moving my feet). Its not as easy as it looks from the outside, which I more or less expected. The girls got into it a bit, but they didn't really pay any attention to the game, just hopped around on the pad and had fun. Which is fine, that's partly the reason that I bought it.

I had to put on the workout mode, as that was another part of the reason I bought it, which was nice. Gave a bunch of random songs a try and burnt off 150 calories at the same time. The cola I'm drinking right now is 1 calorie, so I guess that's the equivalent of 150 colas... or about the same as looking at pizza for more than 2 minutes. :)

So today, my legs are all tired. Not used to do so much hopping about and stepping all at once. The plan is to try to play, or at least put on workout mode once a day. If I can get that kind of time and handle the exercise.

One other note. Found out the the scale at home is off by 10 pounds (it underweighs us). Not sure if we should make a correction or not. Also, here's the weight update:

Starting weight: 210
Last Week's Weight: 200
This Week's Weight: 201
Change Since Last : up 1 pound!
Total Change: lost 9 pounds.

I've got to really start doing some exercises if I'm going to manage to burn off 21 more pounds in in the next 48 days.

Posted 4:18 PM by Tim
Day 37. Did not post yesterday. Did some weights yesterday which was good. I needed to wait a day because my elbow was sore from pushing the car after it broke down. Feeling good about myself today. That's always nice.

Posted 10:21 AM by Tim
Day 35. Monday again. This week's stats:

Starting weight: 210
Last week's weight: 200
This week's weight: 200
Change since last week: 0! Zip! Nada!
Total change: 10 pounds. Not so exciting for the third week in a row.

Right. So I haven't lost anything. Not that I've been sticking to the "eat less" diet very well. I'm getting the weights and pool stuff in there, but I think I've finally adjusted to the total activity.

I've been playing a lot of XIII lately. It's not a bad game really. You don't get a lot of first person shooters that are story driven, and also partly stealth missions. Its got me following along the storyline and trying to keep up with everything. Its cool.

Today is the last day for me to work here at this office. After this I'll have things to do elsewhere, but I've got to start asking a few questions around to find out just what I should be doing. I hope they put me onto something interesting. The work in NY hasn't started up yet, so there's nothing for me to be doing on that. I'm hoping that they start doing that soon so that I can really get going on it. I've never been to NY after all, and it'd be cool to live down there for a while.

Posted 11:31 AM by Tim
Day 32. Did a good set on the weights yesterday. Feeling good today. Not sure if the overall increase in activity or the supplements are working on the width issue. Either way, I decided to measure myself, and I'm down to 44" at the wide bit. I was 44.5" Yes, a half inch isn't much, but it's something. Taken me 4 weeks to lose that half inch, so I don't know if I'll meet my goal of a 4" lose. Maybe once DDR gets here and I start doing the dance thing it'll start to burn off.

Work is going to be an issue today. I just know it. It's one thing to get into a problem and get really, really stuck. That at least keeps you busy all day. It's quite another to get into a problem and suddenly figure it all out. That leaves you with 7 hours of nothing to do. Not at all what I was hoping for today.

To complicate matters, we're running out of things to get Wayne to do. On one hand, that's a good thing. It means that he's getting close to being fully trained. On the other, it means he's got nothing to do too. Gah. So much, yet so little.

Posted 10:06 AM by Tim
Day 31. I decided that this being the start of the month, I should weigh myself to see how I'm doing a full 30 days later. I weight 203 this morning. That's a total loss of 7 pounds. Of course, if you look back at Monday's post, you'll see that I was 200 pounds, which means that I've gained 3 pounds over the week so far. I'm going to have to get either more physically active, eat better, or both.

Today is Canada Day. I'm a proud Canadian, so it's always been one of my favourite holidays. I think we're going to go by the historical park and celebrate Dominion Day, which was the name of the holiday before confederation.

Rosa, my main home system, has finally be fixed. We had to bulldoze the original install and start over, so we went with Win2K instead of Win98SE. This, for some reason, left the system unable to detect ps/2 keyboards and mice. Fortunately, it could detect USB devices fine. So, I've got a new keyboard and mouse to use. They work really nice.

That's all for right now, maybe I'll say something else later.

Posted 9:46 AM by Tim
Day 30: A whole month. There's been some changes in my overall lifestyle, and I've lost 10 pounds so far. I'm a third of the way done, and I've got a third of the weight lost. That's right on target if you ask me.

The other day I found a BMI calculator on the web. I ran my height and weight though it and came up with a number that's in the "overweight" range. I put in my goal weight, and it was still in the overweight area, but it was close to the normal range. I noodled with it for a bit until I found the weight I'm supposed to weigh. I think it was 174 pounds. I'd adjust my weight goal to that, but I think that's going to be difficult. I used to weigh 160 when I was 16, and I weighed 180 around the time I was 18 or so. Getting back to that weight will be good.

Posted 10:17 AM by Tim
Day 29. Did a little bit of exercise last night. Was trying to fix up Rosa so that I could use it again. New OS, but the keyboard and mouse won't recognize anymore. Got too involved in it to remember that I was supposed to do a long workout tonight. So, I did a short one and went with that. I'll do another one today.

Election was last night. Haven't mentioned it before because I didn't really have a good idea of anything to say on it. In the end, we've got a minority Liberal government. This, at least in recent memory, means a short parliment and a quick turnover of the government. Probably be at the polls in Sepetember.

Posted 6:09 PM by Tim
Day 28. So, I did some swimming yesterday. Meant to do some weights too, but didn't. Got a nice burn started. Sun, that is.

Anyway, time for the progress report.

Starting Weight: 210.
Last Week's Weight: 200
This Week's Weight: 200
Change since last week: 0 pounds! Wah! I didn't lose anything!
Total Change: 10 pounds! That's good!

So, no weight lost this week. I figure that's partly due to a lax in my ideals of not eating so much. I kinda went a little heavier on the snackfoods. Inevitable I think. There's too much of them around the house.

My copy of DDR arrived. In Troy, Michigan. I'd hoped it would have arrived earlier so that it could have made the trip up with my friend for the weekend. Too bad for me. Its stuck there for about two weeks and I've no free time to go get it. I'd take a hop down on Canada Day if I could, but that's not a holiday in the USA, and driving that far for one game is probably not the way to go.

The hope was that I'd be able to get the game and get playing. Really start working the muscles. No chance though.

I did go for a nice bike ride this weekend though. We'll probably take another on Canada Day and again this weekend.

Tonight is packed with things to do. I've got to finish up here, get home, vote, get Wayne to understand SQL, and figure out something for him to do tomorrow. Then, I've got to work up some quick changes on one of the reports here if I get a chance, and hopefully get Rosa back online and working properly. No keyboard means sucky computer.

Gah. Too busy.

Posted 2:16 PM by Tim
Day 25. Did a quick set of weights last night. Arms were still tired from the more complete workout yesterday. Feel fine today, but a little tired.

I'm planning a bike ride if its not too rainy and I can get that tire fixed.

Posted 3:54 PM by Tim
Day 24. Bren wanted to see how her diet was going, so she got out the scale. She didn't think she lost that much weight, so she wanted me to get on the scale too to see whether or not it was broken. Apparently I'm back to 205. I've noticed that when I weigh myself in the week I weight more than I do over the weekend. I think I eat less and do more on the weekend than during the week. 5 pounds is pretty significant. I've got to start eating less overall.

I did the weights last night, but didn't get to the pool. I'm going to have to do them again tonight. I figure I've got to focus on them some to get any sort of result. I've used almost a third of my challenge time, and I'm still not nearly happy with the development of upper body strength. I'm working on it though.

Posted 10:47 AM by Tim
Day 23. Still did not manage to do the stomach exercises this morning. Felt bad about it too. Could have been up early enough to do it, but just didn't get out of bed. No weights last night either. I've read somewhere that you're supposed to give your muscles a rest now and then to give them a chance to recover. I can't stick to that idea too literally, or I'll lose all momentum.

Ok. I been thinking about all the things I want to buy. If I had money, of course. I tend to keep a list of things that I'd like running around in my head and sort of slowly saving towards buying them. Most of them are somewhat silly or impratically expensive for the item. I did recently cross two of these items off of my list though.

One item that I crossed off was a memory stick for my computer. Wayne was nice enough to nab me one while he was down in the US. He got it pretty cheap, so that's what made it a practical buy.

The second is an item I'm still waiting on. A copy of Dance Dance Revolution for the XBox. I've paid for one I won off of EBay, I'm now just waiting for it to be delivered. This is one of those items that's both a little impractical and expensive.

One of the other items on this list is a web cam. A number of my friends have one (hell, even my mom has one!). I've wanted one for a while, but it's always been too expensive to bother with, and they're really of no practical use unless you're going to have a real need for home video-conferencing. Still, I'm told the prices are down to about $30 for a cheapy, so I might be swung to the dark side and get one. We'll see about that though.

Posted 8:02 PM by Tim
Day 22. Did the weights last night, but I've been slacking on the stomach exercises. Got to use my new 10 pound, which was really nice.

Work today was intersting. Had Wayne there and had to help him work along with everything. He got to see a good amount of Corporate Me. Which is very different from the regular me. Hope he didn't mind too much.

Posted 9:56 AM by Tim
Day 21. Just like last week, I weighed myself to see how I'm doing.

Starting weight: 210
Last week's weight: 202
This week's weight: 200
Change from last week: 2 pounds lost
Total Change: 10 pounds! That's a sack of potatoes!

This weekend I did a fair bit of exercise. Got in at least an hour of pool time, and did some weights on Saturday. I went down to the store and bought me a 10 pound weight to supplement the pair of 5 pound dumbells I've got. Don't laugh! I'm starting from scratch here. I'll probably get some use out of the 10 pound tonight. Hard to believe that the weight that I bought is the same amount as what I've lost already. Wow. I'm so happy about that.

In other news, life keeps going as it should. Father's day came and went, and I bought myself a gift. A copy of Dance Dance Revolution for the XBox, and a dance pad. They should be up here by the weekend, so I'm going to start doing some dancing. Well, fake dancing. The goal, of course, is to do something with my body that's higher cardio than what I do now (read: nothing). The hope is that maybe it will also help me learn a few moves and a little rhythm even. Possibly have my oldest get on the pad with me and do some dancing too. Anything to help out her coordination and motor planning. I would have bought two pads, but the whole thing is pretty expensive, so I figure I'll start out as cheaply as I can. If I like the game, I'll look into getting another pad. Maybe even think about live to dance against people online... but that seems excessive.

Anyway. Life's good right now. I've got to start focusing on the chin-ups I think, 'cause I've always been pretty weak in that area.

Posted 9:51 AM by Tim
Day 19. I took last night off. Bren downloaded this exercise planner application. Seems like it might actually be good, but we've only got 2 evaluation tries total and I used one already. There's a good deal of information in there, so I might try hacking the data out of it this weekend.

One thing I found is that I wan't quite doing the dumbell exercises right for my biceps. I figured I wasn't doing it quite right because I had some muscle pain in muscles that should not have been worked. They've got illustrations and note on how to do the exercises right, so those should be very helpful.

In other news, I've learned that there's a VTES game in Guelph this weekend. I'm thinking of attending. Just drag out my decks and see how they fare in "for fun" play. It'd be cool to win, but just as cool to just play. Gotta see if there's enough free time in the weekend. I'm thinking that there isn't.

Posted 2:49 PM by Tim
Day 17. Rain last night, so no swim. Did weights instead. Arms were sore towards the evening yesterday, but feel fine now. Must be getting used to the extra activity. Will probalby lay off everything tonight (still rainy) and let the muscles relax a bit.

Posted 10:59 AM by Tim
Day 16.

Yesterday was pretty active. I did my morning crunches, and last night had a swim, then weights. That's quite a bit for me. Today looks like it'll be pretty busy too. Probably swim again, and I've got a day of weights to catch, so I'm thinking of just doing another set tonight. Leaves me little time for the other things I'd like to get done around the house.

Work is busy, but we'll see where that's going soon enough. This contract is coming to a close quick, and I'm working on what I can to get it all out of the way. There's a number of open ticket items for the testing rounds, but we're working on them.

Got the hall booked for the next tourney. Got to figure out the events and put out another tourney announcement. That'll give people lots of time to get ready. Maybe do something special for an "out of school" theme.

Posted 9:17 AM by Tim
Day 15. I'm one 6th of the way through my fitness challenge. Yay! How's my goals? Well, the only one I know for sure is the weight. I've lost 8 pounds of 30. Not too bad really. Still got to keep on with the rest of it.

Did my crunches this morning. I've got to read how to do them right. I don't think I'm getting them quite right.

Posted 9:34 AM by Tim
Day 14. I didn't post on the weekend again, so I can just cover those days as well. I didn't have a chance to do any exercises on Saturday or Sunday. None at all. The crunches in the morning I probably should have found time to do anyway, but I totally forgot about them on Saturday and just didn't have the time on Sunday. I was in Midland, and I'm not in the habit of packing my weights with me, so I didn't do any of those either.

This morning I weighed myself. Here's the results:

Starting weight: 210.
Last week's weight: 205.
This week's weight: 202.
Change from last week: 3 pounds lost!
Total change: 8 pounds lost!

So, less weight loss than the first week, but that's to be expected. I'm doing great I think. Slow and steady weight loss, continued progress on the exercise and diet. I did my crunches this morning, and didn't feel too bad afterward. Felt pretty bad while doing them though. Just gotta read up on proper technique I think.

Now for the rest of the weekend. Tourney went off. Not as many people showed up though because of the Prom that was just the night before. We ended up with about half of last month's numbers. Still, we had a good set of games and I even managed to play in draft. I won it, but can't take prizes, so I get to give a lot of stuff away. I'm a little worried about the total investment I've got in cards right now. I've got enough Mirrodin, Darksteel and Fifth Dawn to hold another draft, plus a full box of Darksteel. I've got a box of Mirrodin and Fifth Dawn on order too.

9th ed will be coming out soon, and I'm not really thinking about buying any when it hits. I don't see it being really popular. Maybe buy a dozen packs and see if they'll sell.

The Warhammer league more or less disbanded. People got the idea in their heads that they can't compete any more. The leader in points is too far ahead to catch, so they're dropping out all over the place. I can handle that, so I'll probably reward the winning guy with some minis and call it done. I've got to figure out a decent way to provide prizes for the main tourney games. Maybe some sort of credit system? I'll have to figure out something.

The second day of games isn't working out like I'd like. It is very relaxed, but most gamers cannot commit to both days. So we get a small crowd out the second day. It takes a lot of effort for me to get the group going for the 40K tourney on that day, so we're always starting late and running long. I'm gonna have to make a change to that, so that we get started quickly and move on with the games right away.

On the personal side of things, I had a nice chat with the Lady Clo, who seems to be having more problems than she'd like. Miss Oni and Miss Spaz were also in attendance, and I had a little bit of time to chat with them too. I feel like there's some friction there, but I'm not quite sure what.

On the work side of life, Wayne's got an interview tomorrow, and I hope that it works out. Its with the company that I work for, and him getting employed there would be great. Not that we'll end up working together really becuase the nature of the work is project based. Speaking of work, I've got a lot to do and only today to do it. Off I go!

Posted 9:20 AM by Tim
Day 11. Checked the scales last night: 207. Checked them this morning (since I checked last time in the morning, it's better to stay consistent): 205. So, no change since Monday. Or, if there is one, its small. That's average though. 1 or 2 pounds a week. They say the first 5 or 10 is easy to lose. Drink more water and you'll lose weight. After the first initial drop, the weight loss slows down because the body gets used to the new regime. It'll come off over time though. You just have to not get disappointed when it slows down.

I've been thinking about my abs. They're not good. I've given myself a modest goal for this area because I know how much I hate doing crunches and sit-ups. A goal I can reach is good, but I'm thinking it may be too conservative. It's something that I do with very little effort. Why am I willing to do curls until my muscles start to hurt, but the smallest amount of pain in the abs completely shuts down the desire. I figure that the only way to really get the stomach to get stronger is to really start working it. So, I'm changing my morning routine to include sit-ups/crunches. Did 20 today, and I'll do 20 tomorrow. By working the muscles 6 to 7 days a week, they're simply going to have to get stronger (or herniate and keep me from doing anything at all). I'm still going to stick to alternate days with the arms though, simply because I don't have the time to do them every day.

Didn't swim last night like I should have. Suppose I'll have to get over the water being cold. It's only cold until you go completely numb anyway, right?

Today I'm headed up to Midland. Tourney tomorrow and Sunday. Didn't pack properly, just shoved everything into a pile for Bren and Mark to pack for me. I took the little car today so they get the big one to fit everyone and everything in. I wasn't looking forward to the drive today becuase driving a standard in traffic sucks. Surprisingly though, leaving later and driving slower overall, I still managed to arrive earlier than usual at work. Traffic was really light today. I love Fridays :)

Got good news from Robert. Seems like all he had to do was kill a few ninjas, and he can stay in the country. Seriously though, he's got news that it should work itself out.

Also, Wayne's possibly got a new job. All he has to do is prove he's not an idiot and he should be in. This should be easy becuase I know he's not an idiot. He's a good worker and knows stuff, he just hasn't had the opportuntity to do it in a practical sense. He'll probably end up working with me, or on stuff I don't have the time to work on, which will be weird. He's going to see the professional side of me, which most people don't see 'cause I tend not to hang around people I work with. Definately going to be different.

Posted 9:35 AM by Tim
Day 10. I keep cheating on the diet thing. Ice cream and cookie bits. Yummy. It shouldn't be a problem if I have some, but I should definately have less than I do. Smaller bowl next time.

I missed out on doing exercises yesterday. Sort-of helped with cleaning up the house, but I never do as much as I should. I did a few sit-ups before sleep and that was enough. Apparently Bren couldn't sleep though and spent some time last night working with the weights and whatever else she does for her exercises. We need to get a chance to hit the pool together now that its open.

A friend of mine has been issuesd a removal order. That means that he's being asked politely to leave the country. Its not the same as an extradition order. Which is where you've done something wrong in another country and they'd really like to give you an extended tour of their legal system. And it's not the same as being deported. If they have to deport you, that means that you either ignored your removal order, or really shouldn't have been in the country. He's working against the order right now, and I hope he finds a way to have it recinded.

In other news, I'm actually starting to feel skinnier. Not that I am probably, but reality doesn't matter much to perception. I've got to throw myself on a scale again and see if there's anything measurable happening still, but the feeling is nice.

Posted 11:59 AM by Tim
Right. Just thinking over the amount of stuff I need to do to get ready for the weekend. There's a lot.

Here's the deal. I live in KW. I hold tourneys out in Midland. This means that I have to cart all the tourney stuff up to Midland every month or so. No problems, right? Wrong. When the tourney was small, it wasn't so bad. I took my cards up and played with everyone.

Now, the tourneys are getting bigger. 18 people show up. I've added card and pack sales to the event. Draft too. I've also added one Warhammer 40K events to try to draw out a bigger crowd of people. People who might not have show up otherwise. So, I've got to take up my stuff, cards for sale, packs for sale, packs for draft. I've got my 40K stuff, the rulebooks and terrain and dice and everything else.

I brought up a DVD player and DVDs last time to give myself something to watch at the house, and played some at the last tourney. So, now I've got to bring that with me all the time. Don't get me wrong, it's good to have something for spectators to do while they're waiting for their event to get started, so its good for the tourney. Just that now I have more things to take up with me.

I've been missing out on playing any RPGs lately too, so I added that in as a late-night activity. So, I need more dice, more rulebooks and more stuff. I basically fill up the trunk with gaming stuff when I go up.

I've said before that if there was a real market, I'd open a store. Trouble is, I don't see a real market up there. I see the area supporting a once monthly tourney, but not a store that's open all the time. This has borne out in the many, many failed attempts of places to be a game store in that area. I suppose I'm just going to have to keep carting all this stuff out there if I'm going to keep running this tourney.

Posted 9:20 AM by Tim
Day 9. Exercise night tonight. The pool is supposed to open if the Health people don't find the water to be all toxic. Of course, a nice early morning rain will throw the chemistry off good. I'm feeling good, but hungry today. Dunno if I'm getting used to a very specific schedule for eating, or if I'm just not eating as much. I'm hoping its the latter.

We bought a new fan yesterday. Another big one. Same brand as the big ones we have already, but a newer model. Doesn't seem to push as much air on the lowest setting, but I think it gets a little more out on high. It's got a remote control. Why a fan needs a remote control I don't know. We figure its good for the bedroom because its not as loud as it's all metal cousins. 'Course, that means that the remote will bury itself in the bed somewhere. I can imagine the fan clicking on and off at various times while we're sleeping.

I meant to do a bit of writing yesterday, but it didn't happen. Never managed to get the laptop set up and open to do any work. No time this weekend either. This is a tourney weekend, which means I work.

Games scheduled for this weekend. Type 1, at least 1 draft (hopefully 2!), 15-CH, GURPS, 40K League, 40K Mega-battle and 40K tourney. Not too bad. Toss on some DVD anime, and possibly having me play as well and we're all set for a long weekend of games. Robert's heading up with us this weekend. If he's got the time, maybe I'll drag him into a game. I'm gonna be tired on Monday.

Posted 10:59 AM by Tim
Day 8. A little exercise yesterday. I'm realizing that I probably don't stretch enough before and afterwards. I've read that a lot of people who exercise tend not to stretch enough. I think I've seen something along the lines of 10 minutes or more of stretching before exercise is supposed to be good. I really should do some more reading on proper stretches for the muscles I've been using.

My other dumbell turned up on Saturday, so now I can work both arms at once. Which is a little different from doing the arms one at a time. Coordination of effort and all that. I'm still working with 5 pound weights. Past experience tells me that it takes me about 2 weeks to work myself back to a spot that I can do more than 20 curls. Yeah, I'm weak, but look at the work I do. I'm a programmer, so my most strenuous activity is carrying my laptop bag from place to place.

The first week of the diet/exercise thing has been alright. I've stuck more or less to schedule for the exercise and I'm looking at adding in swimming once the pool opens up. Until then, I'm thinking on adding a walk around the block when I get home at nights. I've got to do something to keep the legs happy. Maybe the big set of stairs near the school too. Just to give them a real workout. Besides, the schoolyard is the only place that has a bar I can use for chin-ups. My goal is to do just 1. Not a huge goal, but this was the most I've ever been able to do. Upper body has never been very strong for me. My legs have always had all the power.

Too bad I hate to run. I probably should start that too, for the whole endurance thing. Let's say we start with walking and see how that goes.

Wayne is off on course this week, so him not being around is a little different. I keep expecting to find him downstairs. He's sent mail saying that the course has started and he's learning stuff. That's good. I've got to see about getting him an interview some time next week. Give him a chance to get home and relax first probably.

Everything else seems to be just doing its own thing. Hope the pool opens up soon. Today is a hot one.

Posted 9:04 AM by Tim
Day 7. Yeah, missed posting on Day 5 and Day 6, but its not as easy for me to sit down at the computer and type on the weekend. Here at work I'm on system 8 straight hours, so finding a few minutes to bash out a post isnt' that hard.

Right. Meant to go weigh myself on Friday night, like I mentioned previously. Didn't happen. And I forgot about it till this morning. So, I figured, why wait all week? I want to know if anything measurable is happening yet.

Starting Weight: 210.
Current Weight: 205.

Yep. Lost 5 pounds last week. A solid start.

I've even been trying to keep up with exercise and stuff. Did my weights, and some gardening this weekend. Sorta sore muscles today, which I find not to be too bad really. I really need to invest in a 10-pound weight. Start working up the number of reps then swap up to the heavier weight.

Busy weekend. Youngest had her birthday party. I was the only person to watch over 7 little girls. They were good, so not too much worry. The house got a solid cleaning before and after the event. Still needs more.

We got the gravel and plants for the aquarium this weekend. Set it all up, put it all together and filled it with water. Seems to be working like its supposed to, so now we just need fish. We're thinking of starting off with just a couple, so that when they die there won't be a half dozen fish to dispose.

Our neighbours gave our youngest a pot of impatiens for our garden. We hadn't really planned on doing anything about it, but that spurred us into action. Got the tools out and dug the whole thing up, mixed in some fresh soil transplanted our mint plants, and the chives that had survived the winter indoors, re-potted the impatiens, a small rosebush, and planted seed for a bunch of herbs (they're the things that seem to grow best in our wasteland of a garden), and some veggies. We had an unspectacular growth of plants last year, so maybe we'll have a better go at it this year.

The digging was good exercise, so that was helpful with the whole fitness thing. I figure that more or less, the garden and the fishtank will end up being things that I look after as I get a chance on my way in and out of the house every day. No worries there. I don't think I'll mind doing either.

Last up on the list today (at least, right now), gettin' sleepy on the roads. I've got to get more sleep. Nothing ruins your day like falling asleep at the wheel. I didn't, but I certainly could if I let myself. Just got to get a few more hours sleep in the evenings.

Posted 9:01 AM by Tim
Day 4. So I cheated a bit yesterday and had some McDonald's. Gah. It sucked. Like I knew that it would, but the option was not to eat anything until around 10, or eat bad junk at 8:30. I went with the bad junk. Seriously, I ate there, I felt bad. The fries were alright (I tend to avoid salt in all situations, so I only get it from food). The burgers though, were really not good.

I've got movie plans tonight. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. We'd take the girls with us usually, but the books have a step-wise increase in scaryness and suspense, and the movies have been following suit. We prefer to not spend the money on a movie if the people we pay for never manage to see any of it. Sure, there'd be lots of time when it's all fun and cool effects, but the huge lurking dog and the whole "someone's trying to kill me" bit would probably dominate. So, we're going to go ourselves first, and if it's not too bad (no worse than the spider scene in second movie (name eludes me... Harry Potter and the something or other...) then we'll take the girls along next time. Though, if I could arrange it, I'd love to get Bren out to see SuperSize Me. I think. But we'll probably rent that later.

Posted 9:51 AM by Tim
Day 3!

I did some exercise last night. For some reason my shoulders were all stiff yesterday. Developed on the drive home, which seemed odd becuse nothing extra-special happened on the drive. A little weights sorted them out though. They're fine today.

I've switched breakfast routines a little. Yesterday and today I decided to go with a bowl of Cheerios instead of the usual toast with peanut butter. Less fat that way I figure.

There's a part of my brain that's telling me to weigh myself every day. But another part reminds me that doing that is not likely to show any change. Weight fluctuates every day on a normal basis. Water retention, time of last meal, total weight of clothing, etc. Also, the best idea is to weigh yourself at the same time, and in a similar situation. For me, nights, esp Friday, is probably the best time. I don't expect that I've lost any weight yet. That'll take more time because my routine is essentially unchanged. I've only done the weights once so far (well, twice, but that was Day 0) and other than eating less snacks (though I should probably get apples or something), I haven't done anything.

The weekend will be a good test. I've got my youngest's birthday party on, and there'll be a lot of junk foods going around. Try not to snack.

Other news. I overslept today. Exciting, yes? Traffic sucked on the 407, so that was annoying, but oversleeping means arriving late to the parking lot we call the highway. Glad we're billed by distance and not the total amount of time spent on it.

Cops everywhere this morning too. I'm pretty good about keeping the car near the speed limit, so I don't have too many worries from the police. I didn't have the parking issues I had on Tuesday, so that's made me less worried about the meters and my money.

I've been dreaming again. For most people dreams are normal parts of sleeping. For a few that I know, they always mean prophecy or omens. For me, they're almost always a sign of stress. When I'm not getting enough sleep, or enough downtime, or I've got a lot of other stress, it always starts to affect my sleeping. First, I dream. Normally I don't remember anything about my dreams, but I do know that they're always vivid, and in parts, lucid.

After dreaming comes talking in my sleep and sleepwalking. I happen to know that while sleepwalking I can be made to do things, but half the time I'll just stand there because I'm dreaming that I'm doing it instead of actually doing it. And, I have the motor skills of a drunken corpse.

So far, no reported incidents of sleepwalking, but I've had dreams two nights in a row. Got to find a way to drop the stress level down. Could be the lowered sugar levels from the diet. :)

Posted 5:43 PM by Tim
I'm in a bit of a quandry at work here. 15 days of estimated work. 8 days available time. Gah! Must work faster! Must work faster!

At least I'm on target for today. Had to develop this one piece, and it's almost ready. I can't go into more details than that.

Posted 9:43 AM by Tim
Day 2. Nothing to report. Did not do exercise yesterday as planned, so I'm going to have to do some tonight.

The pool is starting to look nice. So maybe get round to swimming once its officially open.

Posted 8:44 AM by Tim
So yeah, Day 1. I tried to eat a little better last night. Did not pick up the chips or chocolate that I wanted to eat when I hit the gas station last night. I did drink a lot of cola though. Oh well, can't have everything.

This morning has all the hallmarks of the start of a bad day. Traffic in the construction spot even though I left early. I had to cut off a truck to get to work. Bad karma (carma? get it? cars?) comes around and I can't get a ticket from the machines to park in the parking lot. I tried different machines, and nothing came out. I even went to a machine that had just printed a ticket. The lady before me got one, I got nothing, the guy after me got one. What happened? I don't know.

Posted 8:52 AM by Tim
So, its May 31st, and I've been thinking about myself again. Weight and health, of course.

I'm not really happy with the way I look, or the level of fitness I have. I'm not depressed over it either, but I know there's room for improvment and change. A lot of room. One thins that I know about fitness is that you really need a goal. Something measurable and tangable that you can use to tell if things are working.

I got the scale out last night. Says I'm 210. That'd be fine if I was 30 pounds less fat and 30 pounds more muscle. I think, ultimately, that I'd like to weigh about 180 pounds. Of course, I'd also like to be able to run about without feeling horribly winded, or swim or bike or whatnot without issues too. Sure, right now I can do most of those things without feeling too bad (the running this has always been a problem though), but its not enough. I want to be fit.

The best place to start with a goal is to start with a timeline. Let's say, three month. June, July, and August. Let's say I want to be 180 pounds lighter by the end of this time. That's 30 pounds to lose. And, I'd like to be able to do, say, 20 reps with a 20 pound dumbell without feeling like my arms will fall off. Right now, I can do about 20 with the 5 pound I've got. I'd love to go back down to a 34 waist, but I think that a 36 is probably more reasonable (I'm a 40 now). I'm going to be nice on myself and say that I'd like to be able to do 20 situps in 1 minute without needing to lie on the floor for 5 minutes afterwards. We'll stop there. If I can get that done, I'll be quite happy.

So: 30 pounds, 4 inches of waist and enough physical fitness to not feel bad about myself. I've got 92 days.

Now I just need a plan. Quick thinking says that I need to change what I eat even more. Slightly less food, less cola, more water. Stick to the healthier stuff. Keep with the fitness regime. Use the pool at the building complex whenever you can. I just need to keep looking towards my goal, and I'll reach it. I might even have to increase some of the goals as we go. You never know, right?

Posted 10:12 PM by Tim
I got a haircut yesterday. Bren thinks its too short now. Everyone seems to be mentioning it too. See, I got a nice corporate cut last time I got it done. About 2 months ago or so. I'm not one to really pay any attention to my hair as long as it stays looking good and out of the way. So, it grew. And got a little bigger than Humayn (one of the bosses) liked. He mentioned it was getting long a couple of times, so I had to go get it cut.

I got it shortened quite a bit. Had the goatee done too, so its shorter all over. I expect a certain amount of commentary tomorrow at work. Which is odd because usually people don't notice my hair - even if I get a really drastic cut.

A little bit about me. I like my hair long. I had to wear it short for a long time, and really never had a chance to have long hair. Sure, I grew it while I was at university, but never too much longer than shoulder length. That was the length I had for my wedding, and I must say, that while it looked pretty good, it really was too long. Still, I do perfer it longer than shorter, but I'm not super picky about it. Shorter means that I can't dye it if I want to. Not that I ever have, but it'd be nice to have the opportunity. See, the corporate world I work in has certain expectations.

I mostly work for banks, so they're really expecting people to be ultra-conservative down to "business casual." Hair colours that don't exist in nature is some point lower than "business casual." See, I could go in there tomorrow with hair that was jet black and not get more than a few comments about the change. But show up with blue, green or purple hair, and there'd be a lot of questions.

Not that work officially bans the colouring of hair or such things. They tend to stick to their scripted statement on diversity. People can do whatever they like with their appearance, as long as they remember that they are working in a business environment, and they do not leave a bad impression on the client.

For some reason, natural predjudice says that if the person serving you has coloured hair, chances are that they don't know what they're doing. I'd love to be able to prove that wrong of course. Go in with bright Blue hair and do some great work. Get things done and out of the way. I'm sure people would adjust their thinking. Of course, this works lots better if you're in a nice stable office. Always the same people around. I do work for lots of clients, so I keep meeting lots of new people. If I want to be taken seriously, it means no blue hair. :(

Posted 9:36 AM by Tim
Another weekend. I didn't manage to get much written yesterday on the train ride home. One of the bosses was with me on the train, so I really sort of missed out on being able to get into a writing groove. I'm also finding that my editor brain keeps speaking up about which words should go where and how the whole thing should be structured. That'll never work. The motto has to be: Write now, edit later.

Well, I've got to get that email out right now, or I'm going to forget and then everyone will be mad at me.

Posted 5:09 PM by Tim
I had an internet connection failure at work today, so I tried to get the wireless network card in the laptop to work. While I could make connections here and there, I did not have any sort of internet access. I did a bit of reading, but didn't get any further along on connectivity. I'm borrowing a little bit of network from a nearby room for now. Even without it really being useful it was still cool to be wireless. Wow.

Posted 9:35 AM by Tim
Ok. Now a little about the new story. I'm hesitant to call it a novel, as I'm not sure it'll make it that far. To me a novel is at least 50,000 words. And right now, I'm under the 5k mark. I haven't even really begun to get into the story yet though, so that's probably a good sign.

It will be different writing this story than writing for the NaNoWriMo event. There, you have a minimum word goal and a time limit. Reaching that goal in the alloted time is all important. Here, there is no word goal. There is no word limit. Nothing to keep me from just stopping and dropping the whole thing. Well, nothing but my determination and foolish pride. I'd hate to let myself down by not managing to bring this story to some sort of conclusion. Whatever that may be.

As a bit of a rough idea of how my brain links things together, here's what's come up in my mind for inspirations. See, I've been missing playing role-playing games. So, I built up one in my head. Nearish future, alternate timeline kind of thing. With a sketchy world in my mind, I started trying to figure out a storyline that I could put characters through as a start. This storyline started to come together in my head, and needed characters to drive it. This is where the seeds of the story I'm writing were born. Yep. From role-play in my head. Before anyone even really managed to see the ideas I had. Now, I'm just picking up the initiative while I can to get things written down while my train commute lasts. After I stop commuting, I'm going to have much less time available in my day for writing. I'm not sure how I'm going to find time to do it then. I know that if I ask Bren, she'll remind me that I really should be editing, not writing new stories.

Gah. I guess I'm just going to have to get to that editing thing. Maybe try to book up a few hours once a week. It'd be slow, but it would be progress.