Adjusted Reality

First of all, hooray for being back in bloggy-town.  I needed that break that the evil spammers gave me, but I felt weird not writing!  I hope that the spam comments will be back down to the one or three a day they used to be.

I got my bike almost 2 weeks ago and was sorely disappointed that I had only been on one 30 minute ride around the neighborhood.  Wind and rain and just general laziness have been plaguing all attempts to go on a nice ride with Zliten so far.  Yesterday, the plan was to get groceries during my special “heathen time” window (when all the other good people are at church – typically before 11am Sundays) when the stores are nice and mellow, not full of screaming children and families.  Nothing against them, I’d just rather get in and out of the grocery store without having to play demolition derby with my cart.  Then, some cleaning, which ended up just being “crap, at least get the laundry done”, and then we were to head to a nearby park for our neighborhood picnic.  It seemed like a perfect excuse to get a bike ride in, so we strapped on our helmets and headed down.

When we got there, we discovered that we were approximately an hour and a half early.  We thought it started at noon, but the sign plainly said 2pm.  Since we were hungry THEN and didn’t relish the idea of sitting around waiting for the barbeques to spark up, we just kept riding.  We both decided that a sandwich shop a few miles down the road sounded yummy, and like a good target, but when we got close, we decided to keep going.  It was a beautiful day, and we weren’t ready to stop yet.  We kept riding and riding, and soon we were downtown 6th Street.

We were going to find a nice place with a patio to get lunch and a beer, but I had brought up an area slightly south where I said I wanted to bike to someday called Barton Springs, so we pressed on and headed there.  After an interesting uphill curly cue ramp and having to walk the bike down some stone stairs, we arrived.  We ended up at a place called Uncle Billy’s BBQ, about 9 miles from the house, and soaked up some sun on their patio, enjoying a nice, tasty local Hefewizen, listening to live music, and splitting a gigantic BBQ plate of chopped beef, pulled pork, turkey, coleslaw, and potato salad.  At that point, we were almost regretting how far we had gone from home, and decided we would try to ride home, but would be ok if we had to take the bus at least partway instead – also leaving open the option to find another nice patio, and another nice beverage.

We rode back down the curly cue ramp again and back up downtown – went up and down once and decided that the places that were open didn’t look that inviting.  After a monster hill we had to stop at the top of, we headed up to the college area.  Shops and restaurants, sure, there were tons of things that looked interesting, but no bars.  We then decided that we’d stop closer to home, and then soon…we were about a mile away and decided the best place to stop was OUR patio.  I was not dead tired by the time we got home, but I was definitely ready to stop.  And I was crazy sunburnt.  Hey, I started the day with a long sleeve shirt and a jacket, and figured I’d be sitting in the shade for an hour or 2.  I didn’t expect to have my sleeves rolled up as far as they could go by the end of it.

Total time – about 3.5 hours (with about 2:20 ridden).  Approximate calories burnt: 798 (not bad for a day off).  Total guilt for indulging in a beer and some BBQ – 0.

I learned 2 main things on my first ride today.  First, I now know why a lot of runners cross train on bicycles – it almost as intense of a workout, but used COMPLETELY different muscles and was even more gentle on my feet than DDR or Cybil the arc trainer.  And – it was a hell of a lot of fun.  We spent the majority of the afternoon outside, on a beautiful day, exploring the city.  Score!  The second is that Austin keeps getting smaller and smaller as we find different ways to get around.  There are places that are 15-20 mins away by car but are a pain to park at so we avoid them.  However, they are also a 40 minute bus ride away.  And now, just under an hour bike ride away!  I don’t think that it would ever be practical to jog down somewhere to grab BBQ and a pint and jog back, but it’s an option…

We’ve resolved to do one long ride like that AT LEAST once a month.  I don’t know why it took me so long to decide to get a bike again, but I’m so glad I did!  Today, however, I embark on another avenue of fitness-ical pursuits.  How did March go?  What am I into now?  Stay tuned for actual posts this week!

I’ve disabled the need-to-log-in option on the comments and I’m not getting spammed YET, so I have high hopes that the spammer has left the building.  Gonna leave it off for a while and see how it goes.

I’ve also needed the break from the blogging – I felt like I had nothing original to say.  Now I’ve got lots to say!  Also, both March and September are my tough months – both have lots of birthdays and music festivals/conventions/etc.  Adding on top this time craziness at work with the recording, I was good for one less thing to think about.

I’ll save the March recap for another, longer post, but let’s just say that I have kept up with the workouts I promised to do, and found out a lot less deep and meaningful things than I would have hoped about the sweet spot.  I either feel like I’m eating not enough or working out too much.  Fancy that, I’m trying to burn more than I’m taking in.  My body cannot be fooled as easily as it used to.  Fancy that, I’ve been spending the last year and a half trying to get in tune with it.  Ah, well.

As long as the spammers stay away, normal postings should resume on Monday-ish.  Have a great weekend, and here’s a drink if you need it!

So between the spam-a-thon of doom, the beautiful weather, and work life being crazy, I’ve been away from the blogosphere and with next week being a full studio week, I don’t anticipate it will be any calmer.  I’m doing great though!  I’ve been doing such things like running outside, riding my new bike, and generally revelling in the beautiful Austin weather.  I am still at my low weight of 153, but haven’t yet dipped below.  Curses!

I’ve got a lot of stuff rattling around in my head, but no time or motivation to get it down.  Plus this spam bot is making me sad, so I am boycotting…something.  More like throwing a e-temper tantrum because my toy (site) isn’t working properly!  I hope everyone out there is having a fantastic week and take the time to do something fun outside.  The graphics are super realistic, but the death penalty is pretty harsh.

For now, enjoy this awesome video Zliten linked me!

I wish it was Sunday (woah, oh)…ok, snapping out of my 80s flashback.

Just a note for everyone – due to the 1000 or so spam comments I got on my blog last night, I had to turn on a setting that only lets registered users (through wordpress, I presume) post.  I’m going to leave it like that for a day or 2 and hopefully change it back because – well, that’s just annoying.  Additionally, all threads will close for comments in 2 weeks after posting and that’s a change that will stay in place (the only comments I get after 2 weeks are spam anyway).  I also changed the default avatars, I think they are much cuter!

I’ll try to investigate how to register to post on the site here with the new rules in place and update this.  We absolutely cannot have nice things or someone will ruin it, can we?  Bah.  I do have to say it was amusing.  I mean, there was a lot of disgusting crap in there but there was funny stuff too.  I mean, there was everything from “Lesbians in the Woods” to “Disney Goes Gay” to “Gay GI Joe” to “Costa Rica Guided Tours” to “Cordless Detector Escort Radar” (which doesn’t even make sense) to “Dwarf Gay Porn” to “Gay Hugs” (now that’s just nice!) to “74 Dodge Dart Swinger” (great, who wants to buy an unfaithful car?).

If anyone CAN register and post a comment, please let us all know how you did it.   In the meantime, this is for the spammers…

EDIT:  Went ahead and disabled the login required.  Comments can be posted again!  If spammers take over my inbox again, I’ll let everyone know.

EDIT2: *Sigh*, within 1 minute I had 4 more spam comments.  Guess I’m going to have to leave the comments as login only (which apparently no one can do), and I’ll have to take some time to figure this out.  We truly cannot have nice things.

I have been searching my brain all day for a post topic, and it just doesn’t exist.  So 5 random things it is!

1.  I got to see Doug Benson at a local comedy club Wednesday.  I’ve been to a couple shows there, and even mediocre comedy is pretty entertaining!  This, however, was a fantastic show.  The local guy that started the show was great, Graham was HILARIOUS, and Doug, well, was stoner Doug and great at it.  I kept wondering why we don’t go more often, and the 70 dollar tab at the end of the night reminded me!  Good thing the tickets were free!

2.  Monday and Tuesday, it was beautiful here.  A little cloudy but mostly sunny, nice and humid, high in the 80s and low in the upper 60s.  Then, Wednesday, some fresh hell blew through here and it’s been no warmer than the mid-40s with 30s at night, and constantly raining or about to rain.  I hate this weather!  We had also planned Zliten’s birthday fancy pants dress up cocktail party tomorrow night and it’s supposed to be cold.  Blah!  The weather is so not fair!  At least it will be a little less of an exceptional drought here…

3.  I have fallen in love with Kashi Go Lean Honey Cinnamon hot cereal.  However, I eat it like I eat all oatmeal, straight from the package, no water.  I love the TASTE of oatmeal but can’t hang with the texture.  It’s been on sale the last two times I’ve been to the grocery store so I’ve got 2 boxes of it but I am scared to see what regular price is…

4.  It’s been a rough week.  I’ve worked quite a few extra hours and it’s been stress stress stress.  On top of that, I’ve had this extra 50 minutes of cardio workout to contend with.  Yesterday I got out of work at almost 7, convinced myself to hit the gym after a lot of mental negotiations, completed my cardio and was almost finished with my weights when I started feeling a little dizzy and shakey.  I wish I could say that I stopped immediately and went home, but I didn’t.  I made it through about 3 more exercises and then finally decided – screw this.  I drove home and immediately ate some fruit and felt better, but it was like 8:30 by that time and I hadn’t had dinner, or anything since lunch besides a small nectarine.  I usually keep some emergency chocolate in my gym bag but I’m out.  Need to replenish!

5.  Spent the evening testing out the drink recipes for tomorrow’s fancy pants martini party.  All totally delish, we are now totally drunk.  I forgot what fun it is to be a bartender.  Tonight I tested out my recipies for a cosmo, martini, peppermint paddy, chocolate coffeetini, lichi green tini, blue lemontini,  and  more, and it was all delicious.  Tomorrow, being bartender, I must make sure I stay sober enough for the task!

Take care, internetz, see ya next week!