Pithy Title Here

I am very proud of myself. I seem to have gotten myself back into 7 th grade form... in terms of basketball. Granted, this is only a few notches higher above "terrible" on the basketball skills scale. One big advancement is that I can dribble down the court while looking ahead. If you are not familiar with basketball, this is roughly equivalent to being able to drive and change a CD in the car. I can even hit, I dunno, half my shots from within 15 feet? All this is due to the fact that the gym at our apartment building has a small basketball court adjacent to the cardio and weight machines. And that's really what I'm blogging about. I've been going to the gym for just about five solid years now. About 5-6 times a week. 60-90 mins each time. Without that, I would likely be sitting on a couch somewhere right now, alone, balancing a can of Pringles between my thigh and a gut so I could leave other hands free for the remote control and a bottle of beer. Instead, ...

We watched Food Inc. the other night. I read The Omnivore's Dilemma several months back (Sarah is starting it soon) and last night I started In Defense of Food . All of this is reinforcing some things that I had suspected, showing me some new ways to look at things and... generally making me immune to hearing about what we should be eating. Among the many points that are at very least worthy of discussion by everyone: Why do we want to ingest food that wasn't raised like what it's supposed to be? For instance, cows shouldn't be eating corn. In fact, corn makes cows sick. Yet, for reasons of economics (corn makes a bigger cow faster so you can sell more meat at lower prices), that's the way it works. Chances are you wouldn't want to eat mutated fish or some sort of anything that has been brought up in a way that wouldn't occur in nature. Yet, that's what we do for the most part. I already hear the "that's why I'm a vegetarian!" cries. ...

I don't want to blame the iPad . So I'll blame Glee . Blame for what? My ire. My frustration... I am more than done with hype deeming things the "best things ever." Ah, before you protest hear me out. I am all for guilty pleasures (I mean, anyone who has ever seen my iPod knows this). But, when something has obvious flaws - or worse, several obvious flaws - how does it suddenly become elevated to "legend" status? Or "revolutionary" status? Exhibit A - Glee . This could be a good show. Lord knows the acting talent is there. Is it used? Not so sure. What is glaringly awful? First, the show was written by a teenager. Or so it seems. Melodrama is lovely, but doing it the expense of truly becoming attached to any of the characters? That's definition bad TV writing. I do not simply need to be entertained by a show in a world with an Internet . Every time the show seems to do something that might make me care to turn in next week beyond hearing s...

They say don't judge a book by its cover. Nor should I probably judge a new tech toy after one day. But, when your one day includes time at home and 8 hours of plane rides, you could argue you've done all the needed testing on a portable device of any type. So... new Kindle verdict: OUT-FLIPPING-STANDING. Firstly, can I get every electronic device I have to hold a charge like this? Probably not, bc unlike every other device I have, the Kindle isn't backlit . It uses "electronic paper," which ( thank you Wikipedia : "Unlike a conventional flat panel display, which uses a backlight to illuminate its pixels, electronic paper reflects light like ordinary paper and is capable of holding text and images indefinitely without drawing electricity, while allowing the image to be changed later." This basically means it really reads like a book. As in it gets dark and you need to shine a light on it. But the non-glare screen makes that a non-issue. The interfac...

When I lived in NYC, I did plenty of drinking, eating and the like and never gained a pound. I has no gym membership. I did have the City's 13,000 miles of sidewalks at my disposal, however. Getting to work involves a 10-minute walk to the subway and five after getting off. The same after work. I would take the train to Herald Square and walk to SoHo . Then I moved to Charlotte and bought a car. I had a good life in Charlotte. I also had a gym membership and heaven help me if I hadn't. Short of walking the dog through the neighborhood, something that sounded good, but rarely really happened, most transportation was via the car. Now, here I am, back in an urban metropolis. My commute now? A 10-minute walk that starts by climbing a big hill. This morning, I needed to go to the hardware store. four blocks later, there I was. We needed to go to Trader Joe's. Bus ride, then 12 blocks. Hell last week, we walked most of the way to the store. And the dog? No choice but to walk her....

I am officially a Washington resident (more on that in a moment). The past several days involved setting up the apartment, which has been no small task. We’ve had to get creative with storage solutions, look at some items and determine if we really need them and make countless trips to both our in-building storage unit and the trash area. And the result it… we’ve got a pretty fantastic place. Pictures will come soon enough, but, really? The place is fantastic. It’s the kind of urban living I was always somewhat envious of back in my New York days. And, truth be told, I lived well there. But this is something else both from an aesthetic standpoint and a practical one. Part of the practicality is access to Seattle ’s amenities. Not only can I walk to work, but I can easily walk downtown. Or to the Queen Anne neighborhood. Major bus lines stop on both our cross streets. The streetcar stops in front of the place. And my walk to the light rail to get to the airport is 10-15 mins at th...

It's a night of firsts here, folks. It's the first night I feel like I have "living" space and not a repository for IKEA boxes. It's the first night I have been on the interwebs here bc my wifi card has been on the rag or something that prevented it from working as normal. Incidentally, if you need some IKEA furniture built, I am your guy. Though I'm pretty sure that after the next - and last - piece there is to assemble, I never want to see a wooden dowel again for at least a good 30-day period. But I digress... The movers arrive at 9 a.m. or so tomorrow. The next two days I am spending the bulk of time getting the place in some kind of basic shape, moving items into our storage unit and getting it ready for the arrival of the fabulous wife and dog (and Spragg !) on Saturday. That said, I have been working full time this week and a few things that are immediately notable: I have a 10-minute commute. Walking. You have no idea how fantastic this is unless ...