…It’s been a while. Where should we begin?
Ok, I own up to it. I’ve utterly and completely neglected my personal blog because I’m all over social networking and any time I feel like expressing my thoughts, feelings, or what is going on in my life I do so using 140 characters or less.
Wheew. There, I said it. Acceptance is the first step towards recovery, is it not?
Although I’m not entirely certain I really WANT to recover.
There is a communication barrier that exists between self-proclaimed geeks and your typical athlete. Someone who has never spent an entire weekend sitting around a table and rolling dice or who has actually injured something more than just their thumb playing football just doesn’t understand why anyone would want to “waste” their time playing games. In fact, more often than not, it seems like many fitness enthusiasts look upon “geeky” hobbies with nothing short of derision.
This lack of groking is one of the motivating reasons why we launched ShrinkGeek in the first place. We wanted to create a place where people who thought like us could seek out others who had the same kind of interests but who also wanted to improve their health. We firmly believe that it’s entirely possible to be geeky AND healthy, and we actively seek to promote activities that are conducive to both.
While I have a disclaimer on my blog here stating that the opinions here are not those of my employer I feel the need, considering the subject I am about to discuss, to state it again. What I am about to write is my opinion and my opinion alone, and in no way reflects the views of my employer.
Ok, I got that out of the way…Now…
On my way in to work this morning I heard a bit on the radio about how the new credit card regulations were going to be horrible for people who, traditionally, are responsible with their credit cards. These “responsible” credit card users are now going to be asked to carry the burden of the “irresponsible” people who have abused their credit cards, paid late, and carried high balances. This type of rage is generally accompanied by vitriol aimed at the Obama administration and how this is yet another step towards socialism.
There are certain aspects of this that I cannot dispute. Banks ARE going to raise fees on people who pay their balances on time and have good credit. They are, and have been, raising interest rates on those people for no good reason. This is, without question, a direct response to the new regulation and an effort by the credit industry to recoup the money they are going to lose as a result of it.
via @thatkevinsmith on Twitpic
There’s been a bit of news floating around recently that I have, frankly, been hesitant to comment on here despite the fact that is probably one of the more relevant topics in recent events when it comes to our target demographic. For those of you who are unaware of what, exactly, I’m talking about (and bless you for having the ability to somehow avoid every major news outlet for the last week) – Kevin Smith (director of the highly acclaimed independent film Clerks) recently caused quite a stir on Twitter when he posted about being removed from a flight on Southwest Airlines because he was, well…Too fat.
The story is, honestly, considerably more detailed than that. If you’re interested in all the details you can hear them directly from Mr. Smith himself on his Smodcast web site. You can also see the two official responses from Southwest over on their Nuts About Southwest blog.
If you’re looking for a well informed and almost guaranteed to be amusing live blog of the final episode (possibly ever) of Heroes you might want to go check out Topless Robot. He’s been doing the whole live blog thing for a while and I’m pretty much just ripping off his gig by doing this.
Thing is, I’m sick as hell and I’ve spent four hours today watching this wretched wreck of a season and I’m feeling snarky. I’m likely to want to bitch quite a bit as I watch the final episode tonight but I figured I’d do it here to prevent spoiling it (and boring the shit out of my followers who don’t care).
If you care, the details are behind the cut.
In what can only be seen as complete universal injustice, we here at ShrinkGeek have to hold down regular old nine-to-five jobs in order to put our healthy food on the table. Fortunately, the job that I’ve got is a pretty decent one – especially when you factor in the benefits. In particular, the employee gym we have in our corporate headquarters is pretty nice. I’m down there at least once a day, and it has helped me considerably in my efforts to refocus on my weight loss in the last year.
One thing we do not have, however, is a cafeteria. We’re a decent-sized company, but we don’t really have enough staff in our main location to justify that kind of expense. The only access we have to food comes in the form of vending machines, and as someone who traditionally doesn’t carry cash, that has never been a viable option for me… up until last week, anyway. We recently switched vendors, and now all of the food dispensary units in our break room take debit cards.
Unfortunately, many of the options in those machines can’t really be slotted into the “healthy choices” category. In fact, some of the ones that seem obvious choices in that arena are far from it.
makelessnoise via Flickr
Healthy living doesn’t come easy for many people. In fact, for a large number of us I dare say it would qualify as “work.” You have to pay attention to what you eat and how much; make sure you take your vitamins; drink enough fluids; exercise; and get enough rest. If you aren’t consciously adjusting your lifestyle to fit your needs, you can be assured you’ll gain weight as you age. (Yes, even you whipper snappers who love to rub in the fact that you can eat “whatever you want” and not gain a pound). Modern living doesn’t include the kind of rigorous activity that kept many generations before us trim, and compensating for that can really start to feel like a full-time job. Which, as most people will agree, gets old.
Sometimes you just need to take a vacation from your job, and we all look forward to one day being able to retire altogether. Retirement from the weight loss and exercise job, though, would undoubtedly lead to weight gain. With obesity being the cause of any number of health problems, one would imagine that putting on the pounds during your golden years (when your health is already on the decline simply due to the aging process) would be a bad thing.
Well, maybe not so much.