Little Boss Man's Little Life Lessons

Death Valley is full of extremes. It's one of the lowest places in the world (282 feet below sea level), yet it's surrounded by some of the tallest mountains in the continental US (some are over 11,000 feet). The mountains were freezing and snowy, while the valley was sandy, warm and DRY. These extremes create amazing scenery. Sometimes I wish I had a nicer camera, because my little point-and-shoot just can't do the landscape justice.

 

Also, the park is enormous! It just keeps going. I could easily spend 2 weeks here hiking, climbing, canyoning and learning about the valley's geography and history (both are surprisingly interesting).

 

It took about 5 hours to drive to the edge of the park, so not too bad of a drive, but getting to the center adds another couple hours to your drive. Although they're no where near as impressive at the real deal, check out my pics to get a feel for the park. I'd love to go back... but there's so many more places that I still need to visit!

Aliza and I decided to walk down the street to Elings Park right by our new place and catch some sunset shots on camera. We had a great time, took some fun pictures and met some lively dogs. I guess Elings Park is the cool spot to go when it's time for your dog to poop.

 

Oh yeah, I finally wrote an article for Beer at Joe's - http://www.beeratjoes.com/?p=121.

So, I’m thinking about taking part in a diabetes study. It seems like a pretty good deal; they give you lunch and dinner every day plus $100 a week to buy breakfast and snacks. They only have two stipulations in order to take part:

 

First, you must stick strictly to the diet, even down to the name brands that they give you, and absolutely no cheating. So no alcohol for two months during the Study. I’m pretty sure that the last time I went two months without alcohol was during my senior year of high school.

 

I suppose it would be good for me to go a while without hitting the booze, but it’s so tough! Both my roommate and my girlfriend are brewing beer and wine. Plus my sister and her boyfriend have become self-proclaimed beer conisuers and have even started a blog about their beer-ventures titled Beer at Joe’s (http://www.beeratjoes.com). So, I don’t exactly have the unwavering support of my friends and family.

 

Secondly, to take part in the study, you have to have a Body Mass Index (BMI) that is considered severely overweight to obese. Surprisingly, I passed this one with flying colors. I am borderline obese (tack on another four pounds, and I am officially obese). Of course, the BMI only takes into account weight and height, so very muscular, athletic people can have high BMI’s since muscle weighs more than fat. Luckily, I’m pretty muscley, but I’ve still got a fair amount of flub clinging to my frame. Checking your BMI is easy; I like the Center for Disease Control and Prevention BMI calculator because it gives you a little description of what your BMI means - http://www.cdc.gov/nccdphp/dnpa/bmi/adult_BMI/english_bmi_calculator/bmi_calculator.htm.

 

I’m very happy with my size, but I would still like to lose about 10 pounds. Then I would be back to the same weight that I was during my senior year of high school. Although, even after losing these 10 pounds, I would still be considered severely overweight. So what would it take for me to be considered a normal weight? Take a quick guess how much weight I would have to lose… go a head, think of a number between 0 and 100. OK, for me to reach the very highest bracket of “normal” weight, I would have to lose 35 pounds (from 205 down to 175)… jeez! I was probably 15 years old the last time I weighed that much. I don’t think I would like my body after losing that much… I’m just a big guy, that’s all there is to it.

 

Don’t get me wrong, I think that America has a HUGE weight problem, but I think that I eat well, exercise on a regular basis and understand nutrition well enough to make the logical decision that I am at a healthy weight. On the other hand, I think that our society is getting desensitized to being overweight, which is skewing our view of a “healthy” size. I have two close friends who I look at and think, “Wow you’re scrawny! Look at those tiny, little arms and twig-like legs. I could break you.” Lots of other people make very similar comments. So, we decided to check on their BMIs as well. Sure enough, they are both considered to be at a very healthy weight.

 

I think it’s strange that people look at me, an “obese” individual and say, “Obese, that’s ridiculous. There’s no way you could be considered obese,” while saying that my “normal” weight friends are entirely too skinny.

 

Either way, two months of free food and $1000 to participate in a diabetes study sounds pretty good to me. It’s not even a weight loss study. They want me to maintain my weight (or lose it slowly) however; I’m going to be in a friend’s wedding in September and attending a second wedding during the same week. Sorry, but I’ll have to drink during these events (what kind of groomsman would I be if I didn’t drink during the bachelor party) so I wouldn’t be able to start the study until the very end of September. We’ll see what happens.

 

Oh, I recently saw Super Size Me - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0390521. If you have some free time, it’s worth checking out. Makes me happy that I only eat at fast food joints a couple times a year.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Camp 20 Cabins in Laona, Wisconsin - http://www.camp20cabins.com

Forget the Hotel! Enjoy modern conveniences while nestled in the heart of the Nicolet National Forest in Wisconsin's Northwoods. Cabins are fully furnished and brand new. They're cozy and comfy while still providing all of your modern ammenities. Rustic Luxury as we like to call it.  

In the eternal battle of Work vs Vacation, no apparent victor can be foreseen. While Vacation is the preferred of the two it will ever be the underdog, and the evil tyranny of Work will always force itself upon you.  That being said, I actually have quite a few vacation days saved up, and since I never get sick (thanks for the great immune system mom and dad) I also have a bunch of sick days that I won't be needing any tme soon. But I feel guilty when I'm not at work since there is always work to do. Unlike Bubba's where I took off of work every chance that I got. Luckily, for Thanksgiving, they force us to take a nice big vacation, so Aliza and I planning on heading to Henry W Coe State Park to do some backpacking. It looks pretty rugged, but it's not quite the majestic mountains of Yosemite. We're going to pack some turkey, cranberries, potatoes and, of course, pumpkin stuff to make a lovely wilderness Thanksgiving dinner.

 

My company also miraculously gives us all time off from Christmas to New Years, so I get to make a nine day foray back to Wisconsin for some visiting and hell-raising. Ticket prices were outrageous. I'd been searching for about a month, but couldn't find anything for under $600. Finally, I found something out of San Jose (over an hour away versus twenty minutes away if I was flying out of SF) that flies into Wausau. Then the return trip goes from Green Bay to San Jose. Crazy, I know, but almost $200 cheaper than flying from SF to GB. Since I'm burning two vacation days (leaving the thursday before christmas was a lot cheaper than leaving that weekend), I think that I'm getting a total of 12 days off for Chrstmas. Rock!

 

 

 

 

 

Camp 20 Cabins in Laona, Wisconsin - http://www.camp20cabins.com

Forget the Hotel! Enjoy modern conveniences while nestled in the heart of the Nicolet National Forest in Wisconsin's Northwoods. Cabins are fully furnished and brand new. They're cozy and comfy while still providing all of your modern ammenities. Rustic Luxury as we like to call it.  

I'm still getting used to having a job where I get weekends and holidays off. This week was especially odd since the 4th was on a Wednesday. Luckily, they let us leave at 1:00 on Tuesday, so we got a day and a half off. My plan for the 4th was to go to Chico with some friends from Bubba's to bbq and go to the races and do some swimming and boating. However, my friends have known about this for a couple months now, so they all asked for a couple days of work off, and left me in San Francisco without a ride there, or a ride back. Instead, I went over to Jas and Joe's Tuesday night to hang out and we randomly went out to meet up with Zeb, the guy whose house we partied at during the Northbeach Festival a couple weeks ago. We finally caught up with him and his girlfriend (it was her birthday) at a tiny, secluded, hole-in-the-wall bar that I never ever would have found by myself. It was a great little place though. We were having fun, and randomly Christy decided to meet up with us as well, and even my buddy Arnie showed up. I love it when random gatherings like this happen, it always makes for a fun night.

 

The following morning I woke up bright and early, took my time getting ready, then headed back over to J and J's to help them prepare for their bbq. I had a good time preparing everything, plus J and J always get pretty high quality, fun food to try out. I was having a great time hanging out and visiting with all of J and J's friends, unfortunately, I had also decided to go visit some friends up in Tiburon (which is north of the Golden Gate bridge) for a bbq. You can never have too much bbqing on the 4th. Most of the people at this party were coworkers of my friend Kelly. I had met some of them before, so I had some people that I knew beforehand, and I met some other cool people too. Specifically, there was a couple who had just moved out from Madison! They were both really cool and have only been in the city for a month. I think that I'm going to try to incorporate them into my "weekend friends." Since most of my close friends work at Bubba's, they still work most weekends. Therefore, I've started gathering another crowd of people to hang out with on the weekends. So far it's all been working out pretty well for me.

 

 

 

 

 

Camp 20 Cabins in Laona, Wisconsin - http://www.camp20cabins.com

Forget the Hotel! Enjoy modern conveniences while nestled in the heart of the Nicolet National Forest in Wisconsin's Northwoods. Cabins are fully furnished and brand new. They're cozy and comfy while still providing all of your modern ammenities. Rustic Luxury as we like to call it.  

This past weekend, Jessie and I finally decided to check out the Luthern church down the street from our house. I go by it all the time on my way to work, and have been wanting to go for some time now. It's at the very outter edge of the Castro, so we knew it was LGBT friendly (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender), which actually made it seem even more exciting to check out. As we walked up, there was an elderly couple at the outside gate who were exceedingly nice and completely taken by surprise that Jessie and I were stopping by to go to church. As we came into the church, everyone was very welcoming and smiled or said hi or introduced themselves. It turns out that most of the people there were a bit older than Jessie and I expected (we were definitely the youngest people in the church), and probably about 60 - 70% of them were gay.

 

The service ran like any normal mass until we got to "The Peace" where at other churches I've been to, you politely shake your neighbors' hands and say, "Peace be with you," but here, I think that every single person in the building stopped by to introduce themselves and say hi and chat for a while. Even the 3 Pastors (I think there was a presiding pastor, an acting pastor, and an assistant pastor or something like that). After 10 minutes of chit chat, we finally went back to the service. Afterwards, they had what they called "coffee" in the lobby, but which turned out to be more of a "lunch." There was salad and meatballs and pasta salad and cake and a few other items. Everyone was overwhelmingly kind and made sure to stop and visit yet again. Overall, I had a great experience, and hopefully Jessie and I will continue to attend. They also have a very active choir... maybe that's something I'd like to look into.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Camp 20 Cabins in Laona, Wisconsin - http://www.camp20cabins.com

Forget the Hotel! Enjoy modern conveniences while nestled in the heart of the Nicolet National Forest in Wisconsin's Northwoods. Cabins are fully furnished and brand new. They're cozy and comfy while still providing all of your modern ammenities. Rustic Luxury as we like to call it.  

There were free concerts all over the place this weekend. I started out by heading over to meet Jasmine and Joe by their house for some quality greasy cafe breakfast at Curley's (the restaurant's mascot also happens to be a cleaver-wielding samurai grandma... sweet!). We entered into a mildly noisy and crowded dining room where a thoroughly frazzled chinese woman scribbled down our order and then ran away. After a few minor mishaps (wrong food, burnt coffee) we finally were able to enjoy our truckstop breakfasts. This was my second time eating at Curley's and I'll definitely be back for more.

 

 After B-fast, we headed over to Washington Square park to watch some jazz and drink some beers (yeah, I know, we shoulda just brought some beer in for breakfast, but we decided to wait until 11 to start drinking). There were some awesome bands on stage. The first lady was a boogying and shaking and having a grand old time. Not to mention her singing! Man, she could wail; it was cool. The second band was great too. They reminded me of a funkier version of the Indigo Girls

 

We then walked around to enjoy all the festivities and eventually found ourselves at one of Christy's friend's houses (a fellow UW alum!). He pulled out a boot from the Essen Haus (an awesome German bar in Madison) and we proceeded to drink ourselves drunk. Not stupid drunk, just the pleasent light-hearted drunk. I stayed out for the rest of the day and night with my friends having fun, making friends, dancing, blah blah blah, and finally made it back home at 3:30 that morning.... what a long day.

 

The following morning I woke up at 10 and my roommate Stephen and I decided to run to Golden Gate park to meet some friends and watch a free concert hosted by a local radio station. What  a dumb idea. I felt fine when we started, but running 3 miles after drinking all day the day before tends to take it out of you. I made it eventually, but not in good form.

 

The groups playing in the park were Mat Kearney (surprisingly good), Everclear (not as good live as I hoped they'd be), and my absolute favorite -Smashmouth! Smashmouth has to be one of the most fun bands I have ever seen before. They just have a good time all the time. And they sound just as good (if not better) live as they do recorded.

 

After a couple hours in the sun and a slight sunburn later, my friend Erin and I decided to go get some sushi at a sushi boat place in Japantown (thanks for the recommendation Jasmine!). I love sushi!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Camp 20 Cabins in Laona, Wisconsin - http://www.camp20cabins.com

Forget the Hotel! Enjoy modern conveniences while nestled in the heart of the Nicolet National Forest in Wisconsin's Northwoods. Cabins are fully furnished and brand new. They're cozy and comfy while still providing all of your modern ammenities. Rustic Luxury as we like to call it.  After that I pretty much called it quits. I need to rest up for my big job... which is actually going alot better now. Dare I say that I'm starting to enjoy myself?