Losing Weight
I threw on a clean pair of jeans Sunday, and I noticed that they were my 35″ waist size. I didn’t think that they would fit, but I tried. Sure enough, they fit. I also noticed that I was able to buckle my belt one notch tighter on Tuesday. I figured that I must be losing weight, but I hadn’t gotten on the scale in a few weeks.
Last night, I decided to hop on the scale before bed to check things out. Last time I weighed myself, I was at 220. I had been had 220 for a while, and I wasn’t sure that I was going to be able to get lower than that. Last night, I tipped the scales at 207. I’ve been eating better, and eating less lately. I’m not really putting much effort into it, but I’ve been keeping a conscious eye on what I eat. I guess it’s paying off, but very slowly.
Adventures At Taco Bell
To make a long story short, my cell phone was on the fritz, and I was waiting an hour to get it looked at yesterday. I had an hour to kill, so I hit two gaming stores that were within 2 blocks of each other, and grabbed some food at the nearby Taco Bell. I don’t like Taco Bell, but it was pretty much the only thing that was close, so I sucked it up and got some horrible food.
I walked in, and ordered a #6. The guy looked at me like I was speaking Swahili or something. I looked at him for a few seconds, and repeated myself. He looked at me again with that deer-in-the-headlights look before something in his tiny little brain clicked. He asked if I wanted it “baja or supreme.” I didn’t know the difference, and I didn’t want him to have to explain it to me. I took a shot in the dark, and ordered it “supreme.” My order included two chalupas and a taco.
The lady running the kitchen looked up at the monitor to see my order and bellowed out, “We need more chalupas! Pronto! When I say Pronto, I mean now!” The place is a fairly small building. I’m sure that I could stand at one end, speak up a little, and have myself heard at the other end. All of the employees were within 15 feet of each other. There was no need to bellow. I glanced to the side where I saw an elderly lady working on the chalupa shells. She looked like she was about ready to cry. I felt so sorry for her because these young (about 20 year old) people were bellowing at her without any regard for her feelings. It made me hope that I don’t have to work at a Taco Bell when I’m retired in order to make ends meet. I managed to catch the eye of the lady prepping the chalupas, and I smiled at her. I spoke up loud enough for everyone to hear me, “Take your time, Ma’am. I’m not in a hurry today.” That brought a smile to her face, and she didn’t take her time. She got my food out to me quite fast.
While sitting there eating, I was at a booth near the register. The next customer that came in a minute or so after I got my food walked up and ordered the 99 cent zesty nachos. She asked several times if the price really was 99 cents. She also asked how much it would cost after tax. The clerk gave her the price of $1.07. The lady was quiet for a moment, and I could hear change being counted. After a bit, she said, “Ok. I want the zesty nachos, and I can I get a water for free?” This about broke my heart. I knew that she was hungry, and the best she could afford was a tiny nacho thing from Taco Bell. I’ve been in this spot more times than I can count. I wanted to get up and tell her to order whatever she wanted, and that I would cover the cost. I didn’t do it because I was afraid that I would hurt her pride. Even when destitute and horribly broke, it’s hard to accept a hand out from a stranger. I didn’t want to embarrass her in front of the Taco Bell people. Thinking back on it, I should have taken that risk. It makes me wonder how hungry she was later in the day, and it was obvious that she had spent the last of her money on some nachos at Taco Bell. Next time, I think I might take the risk of embarrassment and help out.
The lady with the nachos sat down with her small amount of food and began to quietly eat, and the next customer walked in. He was a regular because as soon as he walked up, the loud manager yelled out, “Hey! Getting two taco salads with no beans, no sour cream, and extra beef?” The customer called back, “You know it! Hook me up!” I’m starting to think that this guy is probably a college student that doesn’t have sense enough to know to eat better, or maybe can’t afford to eat better. I look up at him, and the guy is easily creeping up on 60 with a head of gray hair, and a full, white beard. I’m thinking that this guy should know better. His cholesterol, heart arteries, and future strokes aren’t my problem, so I shrug it off.
I’ve been a regular customer at unhealthy places before, so I guess I can’t knock this guy. However, I learned that eating high carb, high cholesterol fare is a quick road to becoming fat, out of shape, and unhealthy. I’m not the healthiest eater in the world (after all, I was at a Taco Bell) but I don’t glut myself on too many things. I think I’m probably about an average eater when it comes to making healthy choices. My old real vice when it comes to nutrition is that I drink too much soda.
It was quite an interesting experience at Taco Bell, and by the time I was done there, it was time to pick up my phone. They claimed that they couldn’t fix it, but when I picked it up, it was working. Go figure. I think they were trying to scam me into buying a new phone, but that’s a story for another day…
Random Thoughts
Here are a few random thoughts that have popped in my head since Sunday morning:
Will we be having twins? They run in Kiara’s family, and I found out from my mom when I told her about the baby that her mom had twins (that died in infancy) and that my great-grandmother was a set of triplets. I didn’t know any of this before. I guess we’ll find out in the 6-8 week mark.
Maybe it’s the darker side of my psyche, but I hope nothing bad happens to Kiara during the whole process. While I want a child, I don’t want to “trade” Kiara for a newborn. If something happens, I’ll deal with it, but giving birth to a child is no small feat. I worry about these things.
Will I have a son or a daughter? I’m hoping for a son, but I’ll be just as happy with a daughter. I’m thinking that it will most likely be a son. My grandfather is 1 of 5 sons. My dad is 1 of 2 sons. My dad has 3 sons. My genetics seems to have a strong leaning towards boys. I guess we’ll find out around the 20th week.
Will my child have genetic problems? I’ll love any child that I have, but, like any parent, I hope for a healthy, happy, intelligent, caring, and wonderful child. If something less-than-perfect happens, I’ll adjust, and I’ll love the child just as if they were “perfect.” Then again, maybe that will be God’s vision of perfect for my child. We’ll have to find out.
I’d like to raise my child with some religious grounding. I’m not talking a Bible-thumping, God-fearing, Christ-is-all type religion. I want them to know that there is a God, that Jesus can be a source of wisdom, learning, love, and guidance. My child will get all of the science, evolution teachings, and other stuff like that in school. I want them to know and love God. That means finding a church, getting them baptized, and actually going on a regular basis. I’m hoping to find a small church. I don’t want to go to some big church that is more like a corporation than a House of God. I don’t have any religious friends, so I don’t have anyone to ask. I guess I’ll have to start “shopping around.”
Speaking of school, I think I want to home-school. We’re still years away from figuring that out, but it’s something to think about.
Will I raise a child that cures cancer?
Will I raise the next Ted Bundy?
Maybe my child will be the first human to step foot on Mars?
Names. Names. Names. We’ll need to know the sex as soon as possible. Every time we’ve gotten a new pet, it’s taken a few weeks to come up with a name. We can’t do that with a baby. I’d like to pick a name that means something to us. Like “Denise” as a middle name if it’s a girl after my little sister. If it’s a boy, I’d like “Luveal” to be his middle name after my grandfather. It’s something that we’ll have to work out. We’ll have about 20 weeks to figure out the name once we know the sex of the baby.
The due date is November 21st. Will we have snow around that time? Will we be able to get to the hospital when it comes time for the baby? We’ll have “Big Red” (a 1999 Chevy Suburban) by that time, so we’ll be able to handle most snowstorms unless it’s really bad.
Will my child be good at sports? Will he/she want to try?
I want to teach them chess, but I’m not going to push it on them. Maybe they’ll want to play and learn from me.
What kind of hobbies will my child have? Will I have the financial security to support them in all of their endeavors like my grandparents supported me through all of my “I’d like to try that” moments?
I bet my child will need braces. I needed braces, as did Kiara, and so did my father. I’m not worried about the cost, but kids can be cruel, and the jokes can be endless.
Speaking of the cruelty of children… Will my child be kind and generous or mean and spiteful? I’m going to do my best to instill in them a desire to help others, but I have this slight fear of failure. Maybe this fear of failure will help drive me to do the right things when necessary.
Godparents. Do we need godparents? What are godparents? How do we pick them? How do we ask them?
What happens to my child if both Kiara and I are killed before they are able to grow to adulthood? I assume we’ll set something up in our wills, but how do we pick the new guardians? How do we ask them? How do we pick one couple over another without hurting anyone’s feelings?
Speaking of a will, I guess it’s a good time to get one in order.
Saving money. We’ll need to save money for all sorts of things. I’m going to quit smoking for good. That will save me about $15 a week. I’m going to take that $15 a week, and put it in a jug for the child. What will I spend it on? Not really sure, but it will be there for them when they need it. It’s not enough for a college education, but it might be enough for a used car by the time they turn 16.
Will they share the love of animals that Kiara and I have? I hope so because the child is going to be stuck with sharing space with lots of cats and a few dogs. I’m sure that they’ll do just fine with them.
Aunts and Uncles. Kiara is an only child, and I only have three brothers left back in Texas. Our baby is really not going to know his/her uncles too well, but there is going to be a huge support team of friends here in town. I grew up around tons of friends of my mom and dad. I knew that they were not blood relatives, but they were like aunts and uncles to me. Our baby is going to have the same. I thought about listing everyone here, but I knew I would miss some people. I’m just looking forward to my child falling in love with all of the people in my life just like I love them.
How many cavities will they have as a child? I had my fair share, but I hope that their teeth are not going to be as bad as mine.
How many times will they run away from home? How far will they go before they decide to come back? Will I know about it?
What about sneaking out at night? I did it. I’m sure Kiara did it. Most people that I know did it. I know that they’ll do it, but I hope that they don’t get into too much trouble or danger while roaming the night.
What will they laugh at first?
What will be their first word?
I now have even more reason to live a good life, and I hope that they can be proud of me as their father. I’ll always love them, but I also want them to live a life that lets me brag about them to my friends until my friends get tired of hearing about my children.
How tall will they be?
What color will their hair be?
Will they look like me or Kiara?
What will their birthmark be? Where will it be?
What will they do for a living?
Will they go to college?
What kind of grades will they get? Will they take some weird math that they need help with, but it’s over my head on how to do it? Will I have to go back to school in order to properly help with homework?
If I have a son, will he want to run around, play sports, do Boy Scouts, and be active? Or will he want to sit in front of the TV and veg out?
Speaking of TV, it will not be the babysitter in our house.
As soon as we figure out the name, I need to get a domain name, and an email address setup for the baby. I’d like to email him/her my thoughts on him/her as he/she grows up. I think it would be interesting for him/her to read when he/she gets old enough.
If I have a daughter, will she also be active in the world? Will I be invited to participate in stuff like the Girl Scouts? I’d hate to be excluded from something as fun as that just because I’m the dad.
I enjoyed acting quite a bit when I was younger. Will they share this joy with me? Will they want to go to movies with me and enjoy them as much as I do? Of course, I’ll have to be more discerning about what movies I go to if I have a child with me. Most of them will probably be cartoons.
Speaking of cartoons, I guess I’ll have to get over my aversion to animation and start loving the world of computer and hand-drawn movies. I guess Kiara will now get her wish to start collecting Disney movies. I just hope that they continue their habit of re-releasing classic cartoons, so that our child can enjoy them. Maybe I’ll actually get to see the end of Bambi in the future without falling asleep. (I’ve seen Bambi about 5 times, and I’ve never made it to the end. I have no idea how it ends.)
Will Kiara’s folks (who are about retirement age) want to move to Colorado to be near their grandchild? I’m not sure how I feel about this. Sure, the extra help would be nice, and I like them well enough. I’m not sure I could handle seeing them every-other-day, though. If this does happen, I’ll adjust to it. Lots of changes in my life are coming, and this is just a small one.
How old should my child be when I have the sex talk? The drug talk? The talk about how to avoid certain people?
There is evil in the world. I want my child to be able to recognize it when they see it, and avoid it if possible. I have a friend from back in Texas that was not raised with this ability or skill. He’s been taken advantage of many times, and I feel sorry for him for this lack of his education. I hope to avoid this with my child, but I don’t want them to be paranoid, frightful of the world, or overly cautious. They need to love to live life without fear, but it needs to be tempered with a good dose of wariness.
What other questions will I have? I suppose they’ll come to me when they come.
Staring
Last week Craing and I went to the mall to get some chow. While walking around the food court deciding what to eat, I noticed two women giving me hard stares, and they were the friendly kind. It kind of caught me off guard, but I just blew it off as strange.
Then we got our food, and our seats. While eating, I noticed two more women (yes, different ones) staring at me while I ate. It was at this time that I decided that I had a huge booger hanging from my nose, or maybe my hair was all messed up, or something. I didn’t have a mirror, but I still did the rudimentary check of my nose and hair. The women kept on staring. I don’t know if they thought I was good looking or what. I did my best to ignore it.
After lunch, Craing and I went back to work, and as we entered the building, I realized that I had forgotten to go to the bank. I went back to the car, drove to the bank, and went inside to do my business. While in there, I had to wait in line a few minutes. One of the tellers kept looking at me over and over. Again, I started up with the paranoia. There’s no way five women in one day would find me attractive. I just didn’t get it.
While at the bank, I thought that maybe I was wearing some strange t-shirt. I looked down, and it was just a plain blue t-shirt with no writing on it or anything. It couldn’t have been my clothes.
I just didn’t get it. I still don’t. I know that I’ve lost some weight recently, so I’m not as portly as I once was. I’ve never considered myself a good looking guy. I’ve always thought of myself as slightly below average. Are women lowering their standards, or am I getting better looking all of a sudden?
Someone please help me solve this mystery!
Father-To-Be
Kiara woke me up Sunday morning to tell me that she had some news. I don’t wake up quickly, so I was still groggy. Even in my groggy state, my eyes immediately focused on the home pregnancy test that she had in her hand. I knew that she had taken a few here and there over the years, and she never mentioned any of them to me. I knew that the only reason she would be telling me about this one is because it turned out positive!
It was the third one that she had taken, and they had all come out positive. We haven’t gotten to a doctor yet to confirm it, but I just couldn’t sit on this news until next Monday when Kiara has the first doctor’s appointment. I hope I’m not jumping the gun with this announcement.
After Kiara woke me up Sunday, I had to run some errands in town. While I was in town, Kiara asked me to pick up Your Pregnancy Week by Week, and I happened to spot Your Pregnancy for the Father-to-Be while in the baby section, and I picked it up. When I picked up the book and looked at it, that’s when it hit me: I’m going to be a dad. I can’t say that I totally lost it while standing there in Barnes and Noble, but I did start to cry. Not tears of anger, fear, or sadness, but tears of pure joy.
This is something that I’ve been wanting for several years now. Deep down, I’ve always wanted to be a dad, but there were a good number of years that I could barely take care of myself, let alone a child. In the past five years or so, my life has been stable enough that I thought that starting a family would be a good thing to do. We didn’t plan for a child, but that does not mean that the upcoming baby is not wanted. He/She is very wanted, very desired, and will be very loved.
The next nine months will be a crash course on the next stage of my life, but I’m looking forward to it. The father-to-be book is about 250 pages long, and just yesterday I managed to get to about page 100. I’m going to work on it the rest of the week, and I’m going to try to finish it up by the end of the week. What comes after that will be a great mystery, but I’m going to try to take this a week (a day??) at a time to see what life brings me.
Real Estate Investor
I was coming into work this morning, and I walked past this ancient, rusty, beat-up truck that had its bumpers held on with bailing wire, and several windows from its bed cover missing. It was a total disaster waiting to happen. The tires were even almost flat as well. I started to feel sympathy for the owner because I’ve driven cars that look like that in the past, but I saw a sign on the side of his truck that went something like this:
Looking for Real Estate Investor Apprentice
“Click a mouse, sell a house”
%$50% commission%
Call: XXX-XXX-XXXX
Typically an apprentice looks for a master to learn a trade from. If this guy is driving such a vehicle, then he is either incredibly frugal, or a dismal failure. Either way, I would not want to learn any kind of investment trade from him. Secondly, trying to flip real estate on the Internet is probably not the way to get rich quick. I just don’t see it happening, but I’m sure that someone, somewhere has done it. Lastly, is the commission 50%, or $50, or 50% of $50? Wow.
I’m thinking that this guy probably isn’t going to be getting many phone calls to his listed number because of the ramshackle state of his poor little truck.
Volunteer Work
There is a national honor society called Alpha Sigma Nu that allows students from Jesuit school (which Regis University is one) to join. You have to have a fairly high GPA (which I do), at least be in your junior year (which I am), and show service to the community (which I don’t have.) Only 4% of the applicants are allowed in every year. To improve my chances of getting into the ASN society, I’m thinking about doing some volunteer work.
Is this a bit self-centered? Yeah. Probably. I’ve always thought that volunteer work should be done without expecting to get anything back other than warm and fuzzy feelings. I’d like to say that my motivation to help other people is for self gratification, but I do have other motives. I’m not going to be secret about them.
Do I like helping people out? Sure. Do I expect something out of helping others? Sometimes, but not usually. Should I not do volunteer work because I expect something beneficial out of it? No. I think I can help other people, and if I get a side benefit, then good for me.
In the past, I was part of a drug rehab and drug prevention group. I was part of the prevention, not the rehab group. During the summer months, weekends, and on spring break, most of us would volunteer to help with an organization called “Christmas in April” that was similar to the Habitat for Humanity organization. We would swarm a run-down house, and remodel and revamp it over the course of a week. There were licensed contractors overseeing the whole operation, but a vast majority of the muscle, blood, and sweat was provided by the volunteers.
I remember working on an elderly woman’s house for almost an entire week. We started with her kitchen, and moved outwards from there. Because we did the kitchen first, it allowed her to make drinks (usually lemonade) and snacks (usually sandwiches) for the workers as we did our thing. After a hot day in the West Texas sun working our asses off, the lemonade was some of the best that we’d ever had. When we were finally finished with her house, she couldn’t even thank us because she was crying so much. Those tears of joy were all of the thanks that I needed.
Despite my current motivations being different from the “normal reasons”, I think that I can do some good. I’ve contacted Regis’ ministry services that coordinate these kinds of things, but my contact is out on vacation until next Monday. I’ve got a post-it on my calendar for next Monday to give him a call to see where I can get started.
I’m willing to roll up my sleeves to help build/remodel a house for Habitat for Humanity, or work in a soup kitchen for the homeless. I pretty much don’t have any limits on what I’m willing to do. I would prefer to put my professional and technical skills to use to create web sites for organizations, design software that allows them to track donations, requests for help, and things of that nature. I’ll probably end up doing a little bit of both if things work out well.
I’ll let you know how things turn out.
Postfix
I currently run qmail 1.03 as my mail server on my server. The core code has not been updated for almost 10 years. However, there are patches out there to enable things like TLS, SASL, spam filtering, blacklists, whitelists, SPF, DKIM, and other technologies. The problem with these patches is that sometimes they work, and sometimes they don’t. If you run into a problem with a patch, it’s not always obvious which patch caused the problems. There are also issues that multiple patches may conflict with one another, or break core functionality. The core qmail system is well written, and works wonderfully. However, to get the features that are needed in today’s email world, patches are a necessary evil.
There are also sometimes three to five different patches that all claim to be able to do the same thing. Which patch to choose? Do you install one, test it, find that it fails, and then move on to the next? Bah. What a pain. Especially considering that these are source code patches. This means that you need to extract the base code, apply your currently running patches, apply the new patch, compile, fix any errors (if you can), and then do the install with hopes that it works. It’s not an easy process, and if you are not an exceptional C programmer, it is nearly impossible to overcome any problems that you run into.
I’m done with all of this. I’m moving to Postfix.
Postfix is still currently maintained and developed by the original author, Wietse Venema. This instills a great deal of confidence in the product. Witse is also still very active on the Postfix mailing lists, and is genuinely helpful and considerate when helping people that have issues with his software. A vast majority of the time, it is user (or, in this case, administrator) error, but when a bug is revealed, there is typically a patch posted to the mailing list within a few hours. Then the patch is incorporated into the core product for release when there are sufficient code changes to warrant a whole new version.
Postfix can also handle all of the features that are necessary in the modern email world out of the box. Sure, there are some serious configurations that must be done in order to make it work, but that’s true of any server.
I have Postfix installed, and I’m steadily working my way through the configuration process. Once I’m done, I’m going to shutdown qmail, fire up Postfix, and see how it runs. Hopefully I won’t have too many issues, but if I do, I know that the Postfix mailing list will be there to assist me with my issues.
qmail, you have been part of my life for 7 years now, but it’s time to part ways. I wish you the best.
Dresden Files, Again
I watched the latest episode of Dresden Files last night. I actually caught it when it came on, which is rare for me. I hardly ever watch live TV these days. The title of the episode was “Storm Front” which is the title of the first book that the TV series is based on. This made me think that it was the first episode filmed, but not the first one aired.
I really liked it. They really captured the true essence of all of the characters, and I think that is the route that the show should go from here on out. The Blue Beetle finally made a showing, and that made me very happy, but he’s still driving the clunky old jeep. I think that the Blue Beetle should be a permanent fixture, but that’s just my thoughts.
When I first saw Susan, I was dismayed because the actress does not have the proper look for the character. However, I got past that very quickly. The actress really played Susan quite well. She nailed it!
There was more magic, back story, and special effects in this episode. Harry actually did some magic, and I think that it’s about damn time that this happened. I’m still not a fan of the drumsticks and hockey stick, but I understand that most viewers need the modern trappings of wands and staves in order to stay hooked. It’s something that I can live with.
The special effects for Ming, Bianca, and the demon were awesome. It showed how ordinary looking people can be especially powerful. The transformations of the characters when they showed their might was very effective. I really love the way Bianca went from a beautiful woman to a horrible monster. I’m glad that they finally threw that into the mix.
I was almost ready to give up on the TV show, but I think I’ll remain a faithful follower for a while longer.
Missed Yesterday
I didn’t realize until just now that I had forgotten to post yesterday. Work’s been kicking my ass lately. Tight deadlines, a million things to do, and nothing but new stuff keeps coming up. I had a short sit-down with my boss yesterday to talk about my deadlines. Most of them I set for myself, and I think I set them too tight. I’ll be able to get the work done, but it’s going to be crazy getting it all done in time.
He agreed with my deadlines, but he thought that maybe I was pushing myself too hard. I assured him that I’m enjoying my work, and that I can get the work done in time. I actually did a little work this morning and got a project finished. I normally don’t work on the weekends, but I just couldn’t get this piece of code out of my head. I was worried that if I didn’t get it down and coded that I would lose my inspiration. I hope you know what I mean, so that you don’t think that I’m crazy for doing work on a Saturday morning.
Welp. It’s time to get some homework done. I have a few dozen pages to read for Monday’s class, and I have an outline for a speech to write. It shouldn’t take me too long to get it done. I already know what the speech is about, and how I’m going to do it. Heck. I could probably stand up and give it right now with no practice, and just winging it. However, the class has structure, and I have to follow it. Such is the life of a student. The instructor gives me hoops, and I do my best to jump through them. Sometimes I learn stuff. Sometimes I don’t. Fortunately, most of the time I’m learning a little something that is useful.
