In general, I was up at “oh-dark-hundred” this morning and more specifically at oh-six-fifteen, in order to meet Kevin (av8rdude) at the gym at oh-seven-hundred. There, I’ve reached my quota for military time usage for the year—all in one day.
It was Kevin’s bright idea to meet at 7:00 this morning, but he ended up arriving at 7:30 instead of 7:00, due to an alarm-setting error by one hour. But, I’m not bitter, because he shortened his workout to end when mine did anyway, and we enjoyed Planet Fitness‘s Second-Tuesday-of-the-Month’s Free Bagel Morning. Over coffee and our bagels, we had great conversation, mostly about twittering and tweeting.
For posterity: I had a pumpernickel bagel (my favorite!), with Honey Walnut cream cheese.
I listened to the most fascinating episode of This American Life during my workout today:
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Stories of people getting more testosterone and coming to regret it. And of people losing it and coming to appreciate life without it. The pros and cons of the hormone of desire. |
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Act One. Life at Zero. The interview with a man who lost his testosterone continues [from the prologue of the show]. He explains that life without testosterone is life without desire—desire for everything: food, conversation, even TV. And he says life without desire is unexpectedly pleasant. The man first wrote about his experiences, anonymously, in GQ Magazine. (7 minutes) |
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Act Two. Infinite Gent. An interview with Griffin Hansbury, who started life as a woman, but began taking massive testosterone injections seven years ago, and now lives as a man. He explains how testosterone changed his views on nature vs. nurture for good. (17 minutes) |
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Act Three. Contest-osterone. The men and women on staff at This American Life decide to get their testosterone levels tested, to see who has the most and least, and to see if personality traits actually do match up with hormone levels. It turns out to be an exercise that in retrospect, we might not recommend to other close-knit groups of friends or co-workers. (12 minutes) |
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Act Four. Learning to Shut Up. Novelist Miriam Toews, author of The X Letters (which appeared in an earlier episode of the show), tells the story of a recent road trip she took with her fifteen-year-old son. (11 minutes) |
You can listen to the episode by clicking on the Testosterone link above.
Today’s workout statistics:
Type |
Duration |
Burned |
|---|---|---|
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Elliptical |
60 |
1034 |
I worked from home today, calling in to two conference calls, and editing the rest of the day.
I had a killer, killer lunch—that Southwestern salad I mentioned yesterday: lettuce, onion, celery, black olives, sharp cheddar cheese, Southwest-marinated ground turkey, croutons, and a mixture of some half regular and half fat-free 1000 Islands dressing.
I met Joe for dinner tonight and to plan our trip for his 40th birthday coming up in April.
I was going to pick up dinner for us at Shanghai Express, but an armed robbery near campus had just happened and the police were “in pursuit” down that way, so I wanted to stay clear of the entire NCSU area.
So instead, I stopped at Hong Kong in Plaza West (which is were my gym is, and about three or four miles from Joe’s house). It was LGBT night there, I guess, as the only two customers in the place were gay. I know I was, and the girl that came in after me—well, let’s just say that if she wasn’t, she met just about every stereotype of a Lesbian possible: short hair combed back on the sides, a man’s wide-ass belt in her jeans, button-down shirt tucked into her pants, wallet in the back pocket of her jeans (no purse, of course), and upon leaving, got into her big-assed SUV.
I got Cashew Chicken for Joe and I got the Hot and Spicy Shrimp. We were both very pleased with our selections.
We got into the which-came-first-the-chicken-or-the-egg or the “Catch-22” situation as the place at which we want to stay in Costa Rica is one of those places that online you have to send an e-mail to them to reserve your accommodations. You have no idea if the dates you want to stay there are available, yet there’s a disclaimer that says, “Make sure you know you can make international travel arrangements before you book a reservation.”
So, we confirm a flight from Charlotte to San Jose, Costa Rica, but can’t book it because we don’t know if the accommodations are avaiable. Nor can we put it on hold for 24-hours or anything. We confirm that there is a flight from San Jose to the town where the resort is in Costa Rica, but again don’t book that as we can’t be sure we’ll get the domestic leg when the hotel finally responds to our reservation request. So now we have to hope the flights don’t see out before they confirm the reservation.
Just an all-around pain-in-the-ass customer experience that none of our friends will sorry for us about, nor will anyone at the resort care about. We’re waiting for the reservation response now. The good news is, that even though it’s just about a month until the time we want to go, there’s a decent number of empty seats—at least on the domestic flight—at the moment, anyway.
At home, I boiled and then pinched off the tails of some shrimp I had, preparing them for tomorrow—to add to my leftover shrimp dish of which I only ate half tonight, from which I picked out most of the shrimp, and in which there are lots of vegetables and plenty of sauce left.