The New Year is a ringin'

It's officially 2009. I spent my first New Years Eve in style...playing Xbox with all the other losers in the world. I was going to go out but it seemed like a lot of work. I didn't get out of the Gym until 930 PM and I was pretty much spent after that. The reason I was at the gym so late was that I finally sold my DVDs. I just had them sitting in one of my bedrooms on the floor collecting dust. Every night I'd go in there and make sure they were still alphabetized and then I'd pick out a BluRay instead. I felt kind of bad for them...They were like an ex girlfriend that I still lived with. But now they have moved onto a better place. Some little Mexican Man and his daughter picked them up. He told me that they were moving on from VHS to DVD...and I have to say that the guy is pretty smart. I probably paid around $10,000 over the last 8 years for those movies and he got them all for 1/10th of that in one swoop. I am sad to see them go but I have plenty of BluRay movies now and in 5 years I'll be doing this all over again...aren't there people who say something about stupidity not being about making mistakes but repeating them? Well I say fuck those people.

I've been passing my time at the gym by listening to music lately. Usually I watch TV while I do cardio, but lately I just haven't found anything good on. I've also been listening to a lot of Hip-Hop lately. I guess I kind of go through spurts as about a year ago I was almost certain Hip-hop had lost it's flavor. As much as I hate to admit it I'm enjoying the new Kanye...even if he does think he's rap Jesus. One thing that I have been wondering about though is the phrase, "certified hustler." I've heard it a few times in songs and it's made me wonder how you become a certified hustler. Do you need to get something notarized? Or may be take a class 2 nights a week at the YMCA? Do certified hustlers have a union, and are there non certified hustlers that hustle for less than the certified? I've been looking for a second job and I'm thinking this may be it.

I might be aging

The verdict is still out but there is a slight chance I may be getting older. In human years I am 27 years old, and I'm really having a hard time believing it. I think that may be I am really just turning 18 but someone has downloaded the last 9 years into my brain. I can remember significant occasions of almost every year of my life since I was 3, but it just doesn't add up to 27. How is it that 9 years ago I was 18 and knew everything, but today I find myself at 27 and am not sure I really know anything. I mean I know things...I know facts and figures. I can name all the states and...most of the capitals? All right add that to the list. I can't remember all the capitals....my point is that if I were to play a game of trivial pursuit with you I could hold my own pretty well, but what do I really know, the world is not as black and white as 2+2=4. I've decided that somethings have no answer because there is no right and wrong, good and evil, dark and light. Everything just is. Good is not the opposite of Evil, and Evil is no the opposite of Good. Evil is just less good, than Good. I might be less right than you, but that doesn't make me wrong. Anyway I have no education in philosophy, no parental training in thinking, and no religious beliefs. Somehow I grew up in a vacuum of thought. When I was young I had no idea if my parents were democrat or republican, I didn't know their religious views, or really any thoughts they had on anything. To me a parent was basically the person who looked at my report card and sometimes brought me home a burger when they went out. Now sometimes I talk to them and I hear some of their thoughts and I am rather thankful that their views were not imposed on me when I was more impressionable (however I'm sure they do possess knowledge that would of been nice to pass on). Regardless of all this babble I'm not going to bore you, or more likely scare you, with the ideas I've conjured up late at night, but I will say this. I'm not 27. My birth certificate may tell me otherwise, but I know better. I just don't think that the number 27 represents anything more than the amount of years I've been on the planet. When I was 18, being 25 was unimaginable. And now being in my 30s sounds ludicrous. I have the feeling that at each milestone of aging I will look to the next and think, "Now that's old...I better be grown up by then." If I make it to 80 I can imagine myself drooling down my pillow and thinking, "When I'm 90...that's when I'll have things figured out."
May be what I'm trying to say is that I'm kind of dumb and people 27 should probably be smarter than I am, who knows. One thing I do know however is that regardless of how I feel or look there are parts of me that might be aging. On Christmas Day, or specifically night, I was sitting on my couch stuffing my face with a plate of cookies when I heard the familiar bounce of a basketball on pavement. I've been itching to play ball since I've moved to Texas and I started thinking that may be I shouldn't be consuming an entire package of oreos as a little snack. I then decided that there were only 5 left and I was going to go outside and play basketball anyway so I polished them off...Anyway I went out and introduced myself to the lad. It turns out he is in Junior High and even though I see him shooting outside often, he's not that good. Of course it was 930pm and the hoop we were playing on had been crushed into an oval after falling over repeatedly in the wind storms, so may be he was just having an off night. Anyway I was DOMINATING him. I hadn't shot for months but I was feeling the stroke. I was feeling really good about myself until I tried doing a simple right hand lay up. First you should know that I can only jump about 5 inches off the ground and I really wasn't what you would call streaking towards the hoop. I must have done over a million right hand layups in my lifetime so you would think that this would be no different...but somehow I landed wrong and hurt my knee...That's right. I hurt myself playing HORSE. I've since tried making up excuses. It was dark, the road is slightly curved so I was landing on a decline...but I really can't justify hurting myself playing horse. Especially since seconds before I was swimming in my own thoughts about how great I was at basketball. Anyway it made shooting impossible as I really couldn't put any weight on it at all. And then for some damn reason the kid started doing layup after layup...and I didn't want to lose so I kept doing it until I was in tears. In the end I won the last game, but it was way closer...I then limped home and the next day it was very tender. Luckily I'm pretty sure I didn't do any real damage I guess it was just a fluke. Today I did a full leg workout and I was able to do squats and run without much pain. I see he has his hoop out again tonight...I'm hooping (everyone loves puns) he wants a rematch.

Kyle, Kyle, Kyle, Kyle, Kyle

Last night I was watching Damages on DVD when I heard random sirens outside my window. They weren't full blown sirens, they just sounded as if a cop car was outside flicking his siren on and off quickly at random intervals. When I was living in Duluth the sound of sirens was rather frequent and I more than once witnessed a neighbor having a run in with the law. But since moving to Kyle and a much, much better neighbor hood the only time I've heard a siren was when for no reason the firetruck was having a one truck parade up and down the streets of the city. So I was intrigued at what mischief was going on outside my house. I slightly raised one of the wood blinds on the window so I could peer out the front. I couldn't really see what was going on so I tried moving to another window with even less luck. I could faintly hear some sort of music so I went back to the TV and turned down the volume of my show. I then scampered back to the window to see what was going on. There were a lot of things going through my mind. I thought may be they had finally caught that dog that chases me when I go outside, I thought that may be someone was being deported, I then thought that may be that neighborhood kid who looks kind of mean started someones house on fire. I then realized that there was not only one cop car outside my house, but two. I then started to think that may be I had done something. Had I forgot to pay the water bill? Did I accidentally forget to swipe something at the grocery store and walk out with a free bag of chips? My head was swimming with guilt and I was sure I was going down, I just didn't know for what it was. Then the faint music I heard got louder and I heard rather clearly "It's the most wonderful time of the year" coming over the loud speaker. I had seen this tactic in TV shows before. They lay a siege outside a hostage situation and bombard them with awful songs so loudly that they give up. I knew I was no match and I went to the front door, opened it and threw my hands in the air...and in front of me was Santa Claus...riding a fire truck. Apparently the firetruck from a few weeks earlier was just a test run for the actual Santa Parade. There were like 5 or 6 cop cars and two fire trucks, one of which was playing music and the other had Jolly Ol' Saint Nick. An odd sense of serenity came over me at that moment. There is something nice about a city that opening celebrates Christmas. I'm not a religious person by any means. I have zero religious views, but I suppose I was raised on Christmas. May be if I was raised Jewish and had no religious views I would feel different about this, but I don't think so. If there were a parade of dreidels and candle holders outside at that moment instead of Santa Claus I think I would of felt the same. I know many people talk about putting the "Christ" back in Christmas but to me that is a huge turnoff. Why not just let Christmas be a celebration of giving and family and goodness? If there was a baby Jesus on the firetruck instead of Santa I would not have felt the same. I like that the city of Kyle celebrates Christmas with Santa. I like that they aren't afraid for liberals who want it called "The Holiday Season" but I also like that they aren't forcing me obey their idea of "God." I hope that this area has more moments like this...even if I only partake in them by peeking out my front window.

The Neighborhood gang

Today when I woke up I felt like I should go for a little run to start things off. It's not something I usually do, but it is nice after a couple days of it being kind of cold. The thing I don't like about running is pretty much the running part. My neighborhood while clean and perfectly nice, doesn't please the eye in a way that you'd call it scenic. But running through the neighborhood I have noticed a few things. All the homes have garages, yet all the driveways are packed with cars and they spill out onto the street. I rarely see people, but everyone looks like they are having a small party at their house. It's a little depressing as I'm never invited to these parties and my driveway looks conspicuously bare. If I were loaded I would buy a couple cars and park them in my driveway. The annoying things about the cars is that they sometimes park them blocking the sidewalk, which makes running in a straight line dificult. I did see a man on TV who was able to leap cars like an olympic hurdler. May be I'll start with something small like a trash can, or a donut. I also noticed that my neighbors are much more into the Christmas spirit than I am. I don't have lights or a tree, but it's just me here so it's really not worth it. The lights to me look out of place, especially when it's light out. Somehow a house grandly decorated with lights and those giant blow up snow globes seems kind of sad when it's all surrounded by green grass. Then again those giant blow up snow globes are pretty lame no matter what they are surrounded by.
The nice thing about running in the neighborhood is that I have my own personal trainer of sorts. I call him Corky. He is some sort of chihuahua and he likes to chase me. There are a few people who just let their dogs run around the neighborhood and Corky is the one I see the most. He likes to follow about 4 feet behind me and bark at me. If I stop and look at him he sits down and looks the other way pretending that there was another dog that was making all that noise and he can't figure out where he went. Sometimes when Corky is chasing me I run past another house where the dog is loose and then they both chase me. I don't want Corky to be alone plus it's rather amusing to watch two dogs chasing me but barking at each other. If Corky follows me the whole way back to my house I go inside and bring out some lunch meat. He'll wait patiently now for his lunch meat and the next time I go out to run he'll bark at me like he's never seen me before in his life.

Steak and Cake diet

Today I went to the grocery store and did some shopping. I go there every three days to buy milk but I always end up getting more. The nice thing about being back in a big city is the choices. Instead of 2 kinds of apples I can choose from 15...and I'm sorry but that doesn't make them "fancy food." I also bought 94/6 ratio of ground beef. It's more expensive but it's nice for making jerky and for eating. They have a 97/3 ration of beef but that's just way to expensive. Lean ground beef is just as good for you as turkey. Also turkey burgers are no substitute for the real deal. That being said I also like eating turkey. Anyway I went to the store looking to see what items I could eat on this workout plan I heard a guy talking about at the gym. The guy was ripped, head to toe so I figured he's doing something right. Hopefully he's not taking steroids...I don't want to be a body builder but as long as I'm going to the gym I figure I should try to improve on my workout. I've only started working out again regularly for the past two weeks. Before I used to do cardio one day, work out my lower body the next, on the third work out my upper body, and then repeat. It was a good way to work out all my muscles. Now I have decided that I am going to work out my lower body, and my upper body every other day, and at the same time do an hour of cardio before I start lifting...everyday. I've done it for two weeks, only missing one day. It's a lot of work. I hoping that I'm not trying to do too much, as if I'm working out all the time at half speed it's really only as good as working out all the time at full speed. Anyway the guy was saying that he tries to eat 1 gram of protein for every lb he weighs. And tries to eat half that in grams of carbs. I have decided that this is impossible for me. I've heard of all those low carb diets where you only eat like 8 carbs a day...I just don't see how it's possible. 2 cups of milk is 12 carbs...and that's just milk. Two slices of bread 4 cups of milk an apple and a banana and suddenly I'm way over 100 carbs. So I'm going to stick to the diet I came up with. I call it the steak and cake diet. Really what it means is that for every steak, chicken breast, can of tuna, or fillet of salmon I eat I get to eat a piece of cake or a cookie. I don't really eat that much bread, I don't eat rice, potato chips, or crackers. I don't drink soda or juice or anything with calories. I do eat as many vegetables and fruits that I want and when I'm craving carbs I eat the cake or cookies. I do cheat on the diet though. I don't strictly eat cake and cookies as my carb. I try to eat a lot of fiber as well. I really like this kashi cereal that you can get pretty much anywhere. It has like 10 grams of protein and 8 grams of fiber and it tastes like candy...I'm not a nutritionist but I feel pretty great. I also found a website that I like a lot. It's free and they have a lot of neat things for nutrition. They can calculate how many calories you burn while you sleep, eat, or run. It came in handy for trying to figure out how many calories I should be eating. What I did was figure out how many calories I need to stay the same weight if I were to sleep all day. I then try to eat that many calories but work out everyday. I try to burn 1000 calories doing cardio and whatever I burn doing weightlifting is an added bonus. So for me to stay at my current weight with a sedatery lifestyle I need to eat 2400 calories a day. So I try to stay below 3000. That may seem large at first but when I work out everyday I am usually really hungry. I'm not going to starve myself so I eat. Last year I lost a lot of weight on the steak and cake diet and now I'm working on adding some mass. If you would of told me two years ago I'd of written a blog about working out I'd of called you crazy....but that's just how I get I suppose. While I'm not the most social person in the world and there is a long list of things I don't like doing, I like trying new things. When I start with something I usually really put a lot of effort into it. I've read books on everything how to play golf, tennis, and basketball, to how to bake, sew, and how to take pictures. Unfortunately my interest in things is usually a quick flash, while a slow burn would be best. Hopefully I'll stay fit without being one dimensional. Oh and incase you are interested the website is http://www.fitwatch.com/qkcalc/activitycalc.html

Yesterday the day before today.

Yesterday was my birthday (Now you know the reason for all those parades) and today is not. I celebrated in style with Darren and Bonnie coming over for steak and cake. They provided the steak and cake and I provided the place to come. It was my first birthday since moving to Texas and you would think that having a birthday in a state where you know 2 people might be rather bleak, but actually it was alright. I realized that I can't really remember the last time I had a cake on my birthday...5th grade may be? Now that I've had it...i think I want it again. Being in a new area Holidays and Birthdays are probably going to be less exciting than usual. In reality I'm not that excitable of a person so may be on the surface it doesn't seem like that big of a deal, but having the option to celebrate Thanksgiving or Christmas with people and choosing not to, is a big step up from not having an option to celebrate with anyone. It is a little ironic to me that my birthday here, where I know nobody, was the most I "celebrated" in the last 10 years...did I mention there was cake? Besides the "party" i got the usual phone calls and facebook messages that accompany such an achievement as staying alive for one more year. My dad even called to wish me happy birthday. He actually called twice, the first time he couldn't remember why he called and instead filled me in on what my dog Homer has been doing. My dad seems to think that Homer could have his own reality show as he loves to tell people what shenanigans he is in to. For those dieing to know, Homer has been eating food, sleeping, and sometimes lying down while he eats. The second phone call Dad remembered that he called to wish me a happy birthday, but again insisted on holding the phone up to dog and forcing me to say things like, "hey homer...good boy" My dad then laughed and said, "He knows it's you!" We have this same conversation at least twice a week. Most of the time I don't say anything, but my dad still says "He knows it's you!" every time. Sometimes I wonder if my dad has a blog where he talks about how he doesn't really hold the phone up to the dog and wonders why I don't say anything...or why I sometimes do?
I also got a phone call from my sister and she had my niece and nephews sing (yell) happy birthday to me. They do this every year and every year it does make an old grump like myself smile a little bit. They even got my name right this year. Usually at least one of them, sometimes all of them (my sister included) says "Uncle Darren" instead of "Uncle Derek." The funny thing is that when it's his birthday they do the same thing to him. So all in all it was a decent Birthday.

The time I met a pirate

This last month I decided to unload of the crap that I have accumulated. In the past, as my dad would say, what a guy would do is organize a garage sale, post an ad in the free press, or do something along those lines. With the modern convenience of Craigslist I am able to sell my things and all that entails without having to put on pants. Currently I am trying to offload my regular DVDs as I have moved on to BluRays. I suppose in 5 years I will be offloading my BluRays for whatever the latest trend may be...I look forward to buying Ghostbusters for the 5th time. I'm also selling my Desktop Computer as I no longer use it. I bought it on impulse last February. It as top of the line, on sale, and very shiny. Two weeks later I decided I was moving and needed a laptop...after that I never used the Desktop, well until recently. I turned it on, hooked it up to my TV and marvel at how nice my pictures looked on a big HD Screen...after an hour of applying updates I decided I never wanted to use it again...and haven't. The third thing I am, well was, selling is/was a compact digital camera.

Selling three things on Craigslist has lead to me receiving a million emails a day. I'd say 90 percent of them are people who apparently have nothing better to do than email about every item that's on Craigslist. Honestly if you have no intention of buying the item why would you inquire about it? Here is a real conversation I had with someone:

Them: Can you send me a list of the DVD movies or a clearer picture.

I then go through take a picture of all the movies and crop them together so they are readable in one big picture.

Them: Can you now send me a list of those movies.

I then go through and type out the title of every movie I'm selling. 558 titles later I'm done.

Them: I really like the movie, The Office. Can I just buy that one?

Me: No, and it's Office Space...The Office is a TV show.

Then I got an email from a man who wanted to offer me HALF of what I was asking for them. His reasoning was pretty much, "when I resell them I am going to sell them for what you are asking right now."

Also I of course get the hundreds of emails from people who apparently can't spell, type, or speak English. They are of course bullshit emails. They are buying them for a son as a wedding gift, or giving them to their daughter as a birthday present. They are going to pay me more than I am asking for "the Item" they never name it by name, and all they need is my address, full name, telephone number, and bank account number.

Then there is the lady who wanted to meet me on Saturday at 3 PM at my house. I offered to meet her somewhere half way, but she insisted on driving the entire distance. So I sat around the house all day waiting for her. She never showed. As if I had nothing better to do on a Saturday...well I didn't but if I did I'd be furious.

Then today I finally sold my camera. The man met me at a grocery store. He told me to look for a maroon car like off Fast and the Furious. I was expecting some punk kid in his suped up Honda, but instead I got a 450lb man with one leg driving an old Mazda with a million florescent lights on it. He then invited me to sit down in his car. I usually don't jump in a car with strange men, but I had came prepared. I had in my pocket a knife I got in the mail from the NRA. If the man tried to assault me and I had 20 minutes to retrieve the knife from my pocket, figure out how to unfold it, I was going to stab him in his wooden leg. Luckily he didn't try to assault me and apparently just really liked talking to people. He yakked and yakked and yakked for like 20 minutes. He even showed me a camera JUST like the one I was selling. The only difference was that mine was .9 megapixels higher and a touch screen...his was a year newer. He bought it anyway...1 down and 2 to go.