Entries Tagged 'Personal' ↓

I’ve always been hit with an introspection double-whammy around the new year, since my birthday is also two days later. Now, it’s a trifecta, since the Girl Child’s birthday is a week after mine. Nothing like a new year, new age, AND adding a kidlet-year-gone-by to make you reflect. And, you know, kinda want to drink heavily.

2011 blew. However, it’s 2012 now, and I figure it can only get better from here. Or the world will end. Either way, I probably won’t make it to 2013 too much worse for the wear.

Interestingly, 2011 seemed to blow across the board. From my highly scientific sampling of Facebook statuses and various tweets, the ratio of people who enjoyed 2011 to those who disliked it was vastly skewed in favor of the latter. Even more interestingly, the people who thought 2011 sucked included many of my generally optimistic/happy-go-lucky/even Pollyannaesque friends.

Anyway, sorry for being Debbie Downer. I think I’m going to try to do a little more regular blogging. My heart hasn’t been in it lately, but I’m going to try the fake-it-’til-I-make-it approach and see if I can’t reignite the fire.

1. Go here: http://proposalawards.condenastdigital.com/entries/668
2. Click the little heart beneath the proposal description. It should look like:
LOVE | <3 [number of votes] [email] [facebook] [twitter]
The heart, make with the clicky, that’s all you have to do. No registration, no nothin’. Just clicky.

Why should you do this? Cameron and I go way, way back, he’s a good friend, it was a great proposal, and they deserve it. Plus, you don’t have to register, put in your email, or any nonsense. JUST CLICK!

So, I never blog. It warms my heart when you guys email/comment to check in; I do appreciate that y’all think of me/the fam and wish us well.

I’m unsure of the future of PGB. I have come to despise politics at all levels. I am a much happier, more productive person when I’m not constantly gnashing my teeth over an irreparably broken system.

It’s nothing y’all don’t already know: Shit is going to hit the fan. Sorry, Mr. Franklin, we couldn’t keep the Republic. To be honest, I’m not really upset or fatalistic about this. I’m just always preparing, wishing/looking/ready for the Gulch, wondering what the next proper step is, hoping we get it right next time around. I know a lot of good folks and am confident me and mine will be just fine. If you’re here, reading this, chances are our interests overlap enough that you’re going to be okay, too. Humanity is going to move onward and upward, but I really don’t think the United States–as we know it now, anyway–is going along with it. I’m okay with this. I just have better things to invest my time in, these days, than doomed politics. I threw ‘em on the GROUND!

S’anyway, the P in PGB is kinda defunct, and then there’s that whole paleo/clean eating thing eliminating the B, as well. I’ll confess: I don’t have any problem giving up beer in the nine(ish) months of crappier weather. Beer is a summer vice. I’m hoping my present iteration of paleo/health/fitness will have taken hold well enough over this coming winter/spring that I’ll be able to hold off next summer’s beer cravings. (Or, at least hold myself to a sorghum beer or two–they don’t seem to wreck my world like gluten-based beers do. So sad.)

I’ve joked before that I oughta change the title to Aviation, Guns and Whiskey (the guns aren’t going anywhere, duh), but I’m not even sure that’s proper. To be honest, I didn’t intend for this to be a gun blog, and I never truly counted myself amongst the ranks of gun bloggers. They, good folk all, tend to be much more dedicated, focused, and on-point than I’ve ever been. However, since most of you wound up here via gun stuff, I went more in that direction because I wanted to cater to the audience I’ve found. As a result, I’ve skipped posting a lot of the little daily-life vignettes that make it to my FaceBook, ’cause all the funny-shit-my-kid/husband/roommate-says seems a bit out-of-place. I mean, I get that it’s my blog and I can post whatever the F I wanna post, but… I dunno. Like I said, different direction.

So, it’s certainly not a lack of appreciation for my readers, nor an utter lack of things to write about. I just renewed the domain for another year, too, so I’m not shutting down, or anything. I just don’t often find the stuff I’m up to worthy of or appropriate to be posting here. Maybe a new blog is in the works? Maybe I think too much?

Soooooooo. Flying is going well. I’m probably another ~6 hours from soloing, though my hold-up at this point is more my need to study ground stuff (eff you airspace, eff yooooooooou) than my actual flying. I’m doing almost everything unassisted, including my landings, which don’t suck. The only part my CFI is helping with at this point is the flare; I need to be a little more aggressive with my control inputs, especially back pressure, as I come in kinda flat. I am confident I could now land a C-152 without stuffing it into the ground, however, which is reassuring.

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I am three credits away from officially graduating. I had to complete nine this summer, post-commencement. The three I just finished were an online version of Abnormal Psychology. Now, allow me to bitch about the utter bullshit that is a college “education,” at least at my dear alma mater. A traditional three-credit class should require approximately 150 minutes of classroom education each week, for approximately 18 weeks. That comes out to about 45 hours of in-class time. On top of that, “they” estimate one should spend about three hours per credit, per week, studying. That’s 162 hours of study time, for a total of 207 hours of time invested.

The Abnormal Psychology course I just took was graded on the basis of three 50-question exams. Theoretically, I was supposed to view online lectures, plus read a textbook. However, the professor emailed exam review guides that basically included every single topic on each exam, which were open-book/open-note and unproctored. The professor warned that students should not attempt to look up the answers during the exam due to time constraints, but I had two hours to take each exam.

For the first, I studied (i.e. looked up all the topics on the review) for about an hour and took about an hour to complete the exam–98%. For the second, I did the same thing–96%. For the third, I started to study and then figured meh, screw it, since I only had to get a mid-70s score for an A in the class. I completed the test in 45 minutes, which included time spent looking up a bunch of the answers, and got an 86%. Overall, 93% average in a class for which I spent less than 6 hours of total effort. Three upper-division credits in the bag. Gosh, I’m sure glad I’ve paid them for a piece of paper saying I did four years of that.

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So, I haven’t been as strict on paleo as I’d like, though I can’t really recall the last time I ate grains, aside from some breading on some fried stuff. Beverage-wise, though, my main weakness has been the last word in the title of this blog. Funny how my taste for the stuff suddenly returned when the weather turned sunny!

Anyway, it’s amazing how rapidly I notice a difference in my body composition when I’m eating paleo. I’ve pointed this out before, but eating paleo makes me feel and appear leaner, within a day or two. I’m not bloated, I don’t retain water, and I think I have generally less inflammation.

I discussed a couple of issues in the comments to my last paleo post, which I’d like to revisit here.

Point the first: The Inconvenience and I used to get heartburn A LOT. Like, almost every night in his case, and probably 3-4 times a week in mine. We went through Tums like crazy. He’d tried Prilosec several times, to no avail. Eating Paleo cures us both, almost completely. We’ve gone through a handful of Tums betwixt the two of us since April. Maybe we’re two evolutionarily-backward freaks in a world of people suited to eating grains, but I can tell you a grain-heavy Standard American Diet makes the two of us sick, and there’s your proof. (Note: Rectification of chronic heartburn/reflux is actually a pretty common side-effect of paleo eating, per what I’ve read around the interwebs, anyway.)

Point the second: A commenter suggested I ditch the fad diet junk science and just eat a calorie-restricted diet (1500cal/day). Point the first explains the chief medical reason why I’m not gonna do that, but wait–THERE’S MORE!

I had that for breakfast, plus some black coffee. For the record, you’re looking at sweet potato hash browns fried in walnut oil, butter-sauteed mushrooms, baaaaaaaaaacon, and a fried egg. I haven’t a clue how many calories were in it, nor do I care. I don’t care because I don’t have to care. I can eat like that and lose weight. Even better than losing weight is shedding that bloating/water/inflammation so I feel and look lean.

I don’t have to weigh, measure, or track a damn thing. I can also go to a restaurant and not worry about estimating portion sizes. I get to eat copious amounts of meat, vegetables, some fruit, and glorious fat, limited only by my appetite. Oh, another cool thing? I can absolutely stuff my face and yet I never get that bloated over-full feeling like if you eat too much bread or pasta. I tested this theory once by, being a glutton for punishment, eating a boatload of bread. Yuuuuck. Yet, I can eat and eat and eat protein/fat/veggies just for the sheer joy of eating, and never feel like that.

That one was dinner the other night. It’s pan-grilled asparagus with a sausage-stuffed portobello mushroom. It was all drowned in olive oil and balsamic vinegar.

So, all that gives me plenty of energy, feeling great, no heartburn, and…

Be still my heart, it’s a jawline! I have always HATED my chin/jawline. Like, “If there’s one thing I’d get plastic surgeried…” kinda hated. That’s the lean thing I’m talking about.

And this?

That’s a dress I haven’t worn since August 2004. Interestingly, I think it fits me better now, despite the number on the scale being higher. For one, I’m shapelier, and for two, again: leanness. I’m on my way to getting rid of the dreaded skinny-fat, which was pretty much how I always was. I used to be quite slim, but I was never in shape. I’ll admit that the exercise side of fitness is still my sticking point, but making so much progress with unfucked eating habits alone is a great motivator.

So is seeing this:

My only exercise has been basic daily activities/farm chores. I haven’t done anything special other than change the way I eat, and that’s the back/shoulders I have at the moment. (And yes, I was changing baler teeth topless. Living in the country rocks.) What a great foundation to start from when I actually get motivated to do some lifting, eh?

So, there’s my daily dose of vanity. I’m not gonna shove paleo down anyone’s throat; I’m just putting my progress out there as evidence it works for me. If you’re the type who gets off on points/counting calories/whatever, and that works for you? Stick with it. The only thing I really encourage, based on the experience of myself and many many others, is giving yourself the opportunity to try an elimination diet. Take 30 days or so and eat the most basic of meats/veggies/some fruits, and then reintroduce foods at the end. Maybe you’ll discover you’re actually really sensitive to dairy, or maybe you’ll discover you aren’t bothered by grains at all. One way or another, I think you might be surprised.

Lolwut.

I like to make an entrance, so when I arrived on the scene in the mid-80′s, I thought it would be cool to take a ride from Santa Cruz to UCSF on this instead of going home in the car like a normal boring baby.

It was flying for CALSTAR, then. Kinda cool to see she’s still in the air, or at least was as of 2003.

I have some other aviation/medicine/small world related factoids to share, but I’m going to scan some pictures, first.

The Inconvenience has often pointed out that if it weren’t for Vietnam vets being treated so poorly by the public, we probably wouldn’t be quite as aware today of how veterans (of all eras) deserve our respect and thanks.

Thank you, veterans, and a special thank-you to those who came home to jeers and being spit on so the men and women of my generation can come home to thanks, high-fives, and a free dinner at Applebee’s.

Also, a belated happy 235th birthday to the United States Marine Corps, the jealous mistress of the finest men I know.

Even if they wear silly shorts.