Running

Last week I decided that it's time to start working out and getting myself back into shape again. So, I'm doing what I usually do when I'm trying to get myself going on something. I'm having a bit of a "spending spree" to get all of the required gear.

Last year (about this time) I completely refurbished my bike in an effort to build interest in riding it again and by the time I finished the bike the wintry weather was right around the corner and while the refurbished bike was a huge improvement over it's previous build, it still wasn't comfortable to ride at my current weight.

This year I'm trying to get into running again. So last week I went out a couple times for walk/jog/run laps around our apartment complex. However, I realized that my old New Balance running shoes aren't super comfortable. Plus, I don't have hardly any workout clothes.

So, I picked up a couple pairs of shorts last week and I just bought a pair of Saucony running shoes on Amazon. Now I'm on the hunt for some cooler weather running clothes for the next month or so before the winter weather hits and I'm on the treadmill until spring.

I'm hoping to get in shape over the winter and into the spring and then get back on my bike next spring and summer. As much as it sucked to admit this to myself, I really am horribly out of shape and it's time to correct that. ;)

So far, I've (re-)cut soda and energy drinks out of my diet and started drinking more water. I started taking a daily multivitamin and eating salad a couple days a week for lunch instead of one of the work cafeteria specials. I'm trying to also watch my portion sizes and eating a little more slowly so that I give myself a chance to feel full before I stuff more food down my throat... on top of that stuff I've done a little bit more physical activity.

In about a week I've managed to drop about 4-5 pounds and I feel excited to get out of work, lace up my running shoes and do a few laps. I hope that I can keep my motivation up and continue to make progress. My short term goal is to be under 200 lbs by Christmas and ultimately to get to about 160-175 lbs. It's attainable, I just can't lose focus like I did a couple years ago when I started off strong, did well and then just stopped all of my healthy behaviors and went right back to where I was.

Mass MoCA and The Clark

The past couple days were spent on a mini vacation about an hour and 15 minutes away in Northwestern Massachusetts. My girlfriend and I left our apartment on Wednesday morning and headed to nearby North Adams, MA to hit up one of my favorite museums, Mass MoCA. I have been there a few times but this was her first time.

I have seen some exhibits there that I enjoyed more such as Robert Wilson's 14 Stations and Matthew Ritchie's Proposition Player.

The highlights of this trip for me were a few of the paintings in the Badlands: New Horizons in Landscape exhibition and Jenny Holzer's Projections.

After the museum we checked into the Holiday Inn in North Adams. It wasn't bad... but next time I think I'm going to spend the extra $30 and stay at Porches. The room we were in at the Holiday Inn had a nice view and was a nice size but it could have been a bit cleaner. The windows were filthy, the desk had some sticky goop on it, etc.

The guy at the check in desk of the hotel was very friendly, though, and recommended a few local restaurants for us to try so we walked around and ended up deciding on getting dinner at the Boston Seafood Restaurant on American Legion Drive which was about a block away. I had a Chicken Parmesan sandwich with steak fries and my girlfriend had scallops that actually looked so good that I tried a piece of one. (I don't eat any seafood aside from the VERY occasional canned tuna drowned in mayonnaise or the even more occasional breaded deep fried clam drowned in tartar sauce.)

This morning I woke up early and my girlfriend was already up... so we got ready to go and after a quick stop at Dunkin Donuts we hit The Clark. I had never been there mostly because I'm more of a modern/contemporary art guy... but I must say there were some nice paintings there as well as a ton of interesting silver and some amazing furniture.

After The Clark, I was wiped out and ready to head home to recharge for NYC tomorrow.

Next time we head out that way I think it's time to check out the Williams College Museum of Art.

(Broken links removed February 7, 2017.)

More thoughts on fewer choices

Earlier this year I read a book by Barry Schwartz called The Paradox of Choice: Why More is Less and gave a quick overview of it.

I've been thinking about this book (and some of the main ideas in it) more and more over the past few weeks and I wanted to write down a few more thoughts on the whole concept of simplification and having fewer choices.

Like most people I have things that I care about and want to have tons of choices and things that I just want to be simple that I don't have to put a lot of thought behind.

I looked at reviews on hundreds of different tires before I picked the set I wanted. However, walking down the cereal aisle in the supermarket and being presented with plain Cheerios^® in three different sized boxes (8.9, 14 & 18 oz.) just seems a tad ridiculous to me. How much of a waste is it to have three different package sizes, three different cases that have to be shipped to the store, three different spots on a shelf that have to be stocked, three different UPC's that have to be maintained in computer systems and on and on... all for the SAME EXACT product. Now expand this thinking to all of the other cereals... and then on to all of the other products available in a typical supermarket.

Do stores really need to carry a half dozen or so different brands of pasta? (I've never had pasta that tasted any different than any other pasta.) How is "pizza sauce" different from "pasta sauce" or "tomato sauce"? Aren't they all just basically tomatoes and spices? I'm not going to lie and say that I don't have preferences or favorite products and foods but I'm usually so overwhelmed when I walk in the supermarket that I don't pay attention to different prices or sizes and just grab what I'm used to eating but I can spend many hours spread over a few months researching tires for my car beginning months before they're even ready to be replaced.

I don't really know how to justify what I'm thinking and I'm sure that Cheerios^®, pasta and various sauces are important to some people in the same way that tires are important to me. I wouldn't just walk into a tire store and say: "I'd like to buy some tires." the same way I walk into the supermarket and grab a random box of rotini and jar of Prego^®. However, I think I'd have a meltdown if I tried to compare Prego^® to Ragu^® to Bertolli^® to Classico^® to Emerill's^® to Hunt's^® to Newman's Own^® to Muir Glen^® to Gia Russa^® to the store brand (and I could go on and on and on here...) the same way I obsessed about tires.

The whole concept of having too many choices is such a tricky situation that we've gotten ourselves into in pursuit of the almighty dollar... everything is a balancing act. Retailers don't want to piss off customers by taking away their choices and they want to keep adding new products to their lineup to relieve you of some of your cash while you're picking up your necessities but at the same time they want to save money and increase their profits. New brands pop up to take a share of your pasta sauce budget. Retail stores just keep getting bigger and more overwhelming. At many Wal-Mart stores you can have your car's oil changed while you purchase Miller Lite, shrimp, boxer shorts and a big screen TV.

I know there are other people out there that feel a lot like I do. The same simplification argument applies to pretty much everything from the supermarket example to computer software user interfaces. Sometimes having too many choices is overwhelming and wasteful... but how do we go back to a more simple existence? How do we remove choices without taking away a person's freedom to choose?

TAP New York 2008

Another TAP New York is in the history books. According to the 2008 program, TAP NY started in 1998 as the Hudson Valley Beer & Food Festival and was held at the Culinary Institute of America for it's first two years before moving to it's current location at Hunter Mountain in Hunter, NY.

Last year was the 10th year the festival was held and my first year attending. I had a blast last year. However, I ended up eating quite a bit but only sampling a few different beers (which was the main attraction) because I didn't find out about it until last minute and didn't have a place to stay. So I only tried a couple of the best sounding beers before making the hour and 15 minute drive back home.

This year my girlfriend and I prepared a little earlier. We reserved a room just a 5 minute walk up the mountain at the Kaatskill Mountain Club.

We drove up on Friday night and checked into the hotel. It was quite expensive compared to places we usually stay but upon opening the door to the room we decided that it was worth it. Our room on the fourth (top) floor had a kitchen area with full appliances, dishes and a dining room table that was open to a living area with a gas fireplace and a door to a private balcony with a nice view overlooking the Catskills. Off of the living room was a separate bedroom which also had a door to the balcony and a jacuzzi tub. Everything was very clean and neat and in good shape. Nothing was out of place or broken. There were real photographs and paintings and not the typical hotel art. I would definitely stay there again!

After we checked in we dropped our stuff off in the room and went down to eat dinner at the restaurant (Van Winkle's) in the hotel. I don't think I'd recommend the restaurant as much as I would recommend the hotel. We were seated at a table pretty quickly at around 9:30 but we waited about 10 minutes for a waiter to even come over. One waitress walked by our table multiple times actually making direct eye contact with me once and didn't respond when I said "Hello." It seemed that nobody knew who's table we were at so we ended up with a really nice and apologetic waiter named Bill. I ordered a burger from their special (abbreviated) TAP NY menu cooked medium-well and it was medium rare at best. If I wasn't starving I wouldn't have touched it. It wasn't the best burger I've had but at least it stopped my stomach from growling. My girlfriend got a pasta dish with some shrimp added to it. She said the sauce was pretty good but the shrimp were very dry leading me to make the joke that they were probably shrimp cocktail shrimp that got tossed in the microwave when they forgot to put them on the dish when they first brought it out.

Anyway, now we're up to the reason we were in Hunter, NY... TAP NY. At noon we headed down to the base lodge to meet up with a group of our friends and pick up our glasses (that appear to hold approximately 3-4 ounces) and wrist bands. At 1 o'clock the doors opened and everyone rushed in eager to drink as many of the beers as they could. Someone who is better at math than I am figured out quickly that in order to try every beer before 5 (when the doors closed) you needed to try a new sample every two minutes.

I wasn't that ambitious but I did manage to sample about 22 different beers and Heartland Brewery's Berry Champagne Ale was the only one that was so bad I had to dump it out. (I can't remember the last time I couldn't drink a beer...) I do generally gravitate towards the darker beers but I tried to switch it up a little bit and sample some ales and light wheat beers. Some of them were very good... but this one (unfortunately) wasn't.

My favorites of the day definitely swayed toward the dark stuff for the most part. In no particular order, my favorites were: Adirondack Pub & Brewery's Maple Porter, Captain Lawrence Brewing's Smoked Porter, Defiant Brewery's Stout of War, Sixpoint Craft Ale's Gorilla Warfare Porter, Rohrbach Brewing's Bluebeary Ale and John Harvard's Brew House's Oatmeal Amber Ale. Ithaca Beer Company's Apricot Wheat should also be on this list even though I didn't get around to their booth. I have had this one a couple times before (plus had one with my burger on Friday night).

I was really excited that this year's food theme was chicken but it looked like the only chicken they really had (that I could find) were chicken wings with different seasonings. That was disappointing but they did have other food such as pizza, various sausages, soups, sub platters, meatballs, hamburgers, hot dogs, cheese & crackers, pretzels, mini crab cakes, scallops wrapped in bacon, etc. I definitely had enough to eat. Almost everything was included in the admission fee aside from a few of the specialty vendors. One booth was selling chocolate covered strawberries that were 3 for $1 which I couldn't resist.

Overall, though, TAP NY was an awesome time. The beer was delicious and plentiful. The weather was beautiful aside for a little rain around 9:30 on Saturday night and a cool morning on Sunday. The hotel was great and I got to see some friends that I haven't seen in awhile. All in all it was an awesome weekend. (Note to self: I need to get a jacuzzi tub and a fireplace when I buy a house!)

Edited 2024-12-03 to remove dead Heartland Brewery link and update John Harvard's Brew House link as well as changing most links to https from http.

Nostalgia for my Clarkson days

I got to see some good friends from my two years at Clarkson this weekend. It all started about a month ago when my friend Liz sent me an email saying she was flying in to Albany to go to the Clarkson/RPI hockey game at RPI with another person we went to Clarkson with. She wanted to know if I wanted to go...

Fast forward to this weekend. I'm not a huge sports fan but the game was pretty good.

After the game we re-grouped at Ryan's Wake which despite the depressing sounding name was actually a pretty nice place. It was packed, though. I recommend getting Dooley's Cheese Board and if you like shrimp, I'm told the shrimp cocktail was good.

It was great to catch up with two of my best friends from my time at Clarkson. The time flew by, though. I know there were some pictures taken so hopefully I'll get some of those from the people with the cameras. It was also nice to meet some nice new people who are friends of friends. It's a little weird to meet people who live close to you through people who live hours and hours away.

Sunday morning I was feeling nostalgic (which usually happens when I see people I haven't seen in a long time) so I was looking around the internet for Clarkson stuff and I stumbled on a 7 part series of You Tube videos of my freshman chemistry professor's "Chemistry Magic Show". Dr. Jim Peploski was one of my favorite professors. I remember him doing most of those demonstrations in class. That was one of my Clarkson classes that I always tried my best to make it to.

I also ran into some old co-workers earlier in the day on Saturday at the store I used to work at, which was another source of nostalgia.

In other news, I'm still making a solid attempt at the Weight Loss Challenge. Saturday I went grocery shopping for healthy foods and went to work out...

National Cheese Pizza Day & politics!

I was checking out slashfood today and came across a day I can get behind. Today is National Cheese Pizza Day!!!

On a more serious (political) note: Is it just me or does it seem like politicians are dropping at an incredible rate from their posts?

Paul Gillmor (R-Ohio) was found dead today.

As I'm sure you all know: Larry Craig (R-Idaho) was deemed a liability to the Republican Party and was called to resign due to the fact that he allegedly did a gay little foot wiggle in a public restroom and was caught in a sting operation. The article linked above paints a picture of a "closeted" Republican who did nothing but vote the party line. I guess his forced exit from politics might hopefully prompt him to do something in the area of human rights for a change. Well, that is, if he doesn't un-resign first...

Tony Snow, Karl Rove, Alberto Gonzales, Donald Rumsfeld, "Scooter" Libby... The funny thing is that among all of these people who have seen their political careers come to an end, the ones who HAVEN'T been forced/asked/coerced to resign (or died or whatever the case may be) are really the ones who have been doing the most to fuck up America.

I mean, really, Larry Craig... Who the fuck cares if he's gay and wanted a little man-on-man-lovin'? (Well, I guess aside from the gay sex proposition that got him in trouble, he's a hypocrite, too, which REALLY sucks... but seriously... caught in a sting operation to rid an airport bathroom of the gays...) Why can't we find ways to get rid of some of the bigger bad guys instead? I'm sure there are ways to catch others doing things that are MUCH MUCH worse than Larry Craig's "sins".

Affluenza and more.

First let me start out with a quick update to my last post: The scale at work is definitely broken. I might have lost a few pounds... but not anywhere near 15. I'm still trying to eat a little better and exercise a bit more, though.

This weekend was pretty good. I guess it felt more busy than it really was, though. I spent most of Saturday hanging out with my family and washing & waxing my car. (It was FILTHY!) I went to a BBQ at a friend's apartment on Sunday. Great food and awesome friends always makes for a good time. Yesterday morning we picked up our roommate from the airport and then spent most of the rest of the day relaxing for the most part. I read a little more of Affluenza before bed. I'm slightly into the third section which deals with ways to cure affluenza. So, expect to see some entries in this here blog thingy about that in the near future as I finish up the book. So far I've found it well written and funny. Most of the stuff they're saying makes sense to me but I'm hoping that they have some real ways to cure the problem written in the end. I'm afraid it's going to fizzle with no real solutions...

I was talking with my mom on Saturday and the topic of having a vegetable garden came up. She was saying that she missed having really fresh tomatoes after I mentioned that I don't like tomatoes anymore. I remember liking tomato sandwiches as a kid... but now I even pick tomatoes off my $0.99 Wendy's Jr. Bacon Cheeseburgers. We used to have a garden when I was growing up and I remember picking and eating fresh snow peas, green beans, tomatoes, zucchini, peppers and much much more. So, I'm trying to talk her into starting a garden at her house next year. My parents definitely have enough room for a decent sized garden there... I think the main issue that I'm going to run into is the fact that my father has been busy working on my sister's house the past year and they still have a lot left to go there. I know it's going to be a TON of hard work but it'll be good exercise and hopefully we'll get some good fresh vegetables out of it. At the very least I'll spend more time with my family and hopefully learn something about gardening, canning and cooking.

Also, I'm also in the beginning stages of a hunt for a new apartment. I have no idea where we'll end up as of January 1st... but we'll still be in the Albany/Troy general area. I'm taking Friday off to look at a few different complexes and I guess we'll go from there. Once we get closer I'm going to look into some private owner type apartments, too. I'm also thinking that we should try to negotiate with our current place to see if they'll lower our rent to be more competitive with other places that are including heat, hot water, plus cable and internet! I kind of like our current apartment but it's going to get too expensive once our roommate moves out in the end of December.

On losing weight... maybe?

I just weighed myself on the scale in the bathroom at work... and either it's REALLY broken or I lost about 15 lbs. in the past few weeks.

Even with my sneakers on plus my iPod & earbuds, phone, keys and wallet in my pockets it said I was at 196 lbs. I haven't been under 200 in awhile on the same scale. The last time I weighed myself on it I was at 213 lbs in dress shoes and my work pants but with all the same things in my pockets... I know my dress shoes and work pants don't weigh 17 lbs more than the jeans and sneakers I'm wearing today... so either the scale is broken (possible) or I lost some weight.

I really haven't been doing that much differently. I've been eating the same types of foods for dinner. I haven't been eating breakfast that often (like usual). I don't snack all that much at work, which hasn't changed. I went for a short walk around my apartment complex with my girlfriend once... (Which is once more than usual, I guess... but not REALLY all that different from normal.)

The only things that I've been doing differently for the past couple/few weeks is avoiding the can of energy drink that I was drinking almost every day of the work week for awhile, drinking more water instead of sweetened soft drinks and bringing my lunches to work most days for the past couple weeks. (Sandwiches, pretzels and bananas instead of whatever the cafeteria had on special with fries.) A couple days where I brought a banana to work I ate that mid-morning so I wasn't as hungry at lunch time.

So, I guess either the scale is broken or those things really are adding up!

The good thing about this is even if I haven't lost 15 lbs. (or anything at all) it's making me want to start being a little better to myself. Not only is it cheaper to bring my lunches to work and skip the $2.15 a day energy drink - if I can lose a few pounds, as well, that's awesome!

Aside from that not too much is going on. I've sold 4 CD's that I had listed on eBay and at this point I've made a few bucks over the cost of listing all 13 items that I put up on Sunday and anything going forward is basically making money. I'm going to attempt to get more stuff up on eBay this weekend.

If the weather is nice I'm also going to wash and wax my car really well since I haven't cleaned it up in awhile and it's pretty filthy.

Aside from that I'm hoping it's a nice quiet, uneventful long weekend. I'm looking forward to three days off from work!

Brazilian Chicken, gross out food TV and crappy sleeping.

I went to dinner at a friend's apartment last night. It was our host, her boyfriend, our friend Jon and my girlfriend and I. Before dinner I talked with Jon mostly about cars and music. She made a dish she calls "Brazilian Chicken" which is made sort of like this and it's delicious.

After dinner we sat around and listened to the funny, random songs on our mp3 players and then watched some TV shows where the host goes to different countries and eats foods that look disgusting. There were snakes, bugs, fish sauce, civet coffee, and lots of testicles among many other foods that looked completely unappealing to me.

When I got home I was pretty tired so I got ready for bed, laid down and then I couldn't sleep. I laid there for probably close to 2 hours before I fell asleep and then my girlfriend woke up having a coughing fit. After that I tossed and turned again for a little while and then slept in little chunks for the rest of the night. Surprisingly, I'm not as tired as I thought I'd be after sleeping so horribly last night. I really need to find a new job because that's pretty much the cause of most of my stress. Which, in turn, was the cause of my crappy sleeping.

Tonight I think I'm headed to my old house again to go through more junk. I really want to put another dent in what I have to get done over there and hopefully find some more "treasures" to sell on eBay. I'm also hoping to dig out some of my old toys to clean up and give to my sister to use for her son until I have kids someday. I'm going to have to post up some pictures of Alex soon... he's getting so big.

[05/20/2026: Removed dead epicurious link to similar recipe for "Brazilian chicken".]

Fluffernutter cake and more.

My girlfriend just forwarded a blog post about a fluffernutter cake that someone who calls herself "E" created and I want one!!! It looks really tasty to me...

On the job search related front: I sent my resume in to a company near where I live that is looking for an HTML Editor. That's something I'm sure I can handle. They didn't specify a pay range, though, so I'm hoping that the pay is at least more than I'm making here at my current job. I hope I hear back from them soon! I really need to find a new job.

I think I talked myself out of applying for the computer recycler job I posted about a few days ago. I can't live on the pay unless I sell my car and I'm not ready to take a huge loss on my car just to have a different job.

Now on to something music related: Yesterday, I was trying to spending my $40 in iTunes gift cards that I received for my birthday from my nephew and my roommate and I came across Sky Eats Airplane which I guess used to just be two guys who describe their music as "electronic nintendo metal from Fort Worth" in their web site's description. I listened through their CD start to finish last night when I couldn't sleep and I thought it was pretty good. So if there's anyone out there who likes their screaming metal/hardcore/screamo vocals mixed with weird electronic sounds give them a listen. (I'm reading that they're evolving into a proper 6 person band, now, though. Hopefully they won't change their sound too much.) [05/20/2026: Removed dead fluffernutter cake recipe and Sky Eats Airplane links.]