Oh cut it out!

I'm going to lose 15 to 20 pounds in one day tomorrow!

Monday, December 2nd, I'm having an "extended abodominoplasty", otherwise known as a "Super Tummy Tuck".

I've lost 94 pounds since I had my stomach "stapled" last year. The excess fat has disappeared, but I now have a tremendous amount of excess skin. Basically, I look like a "deflated human being".

I'm having a plastic surgeon basically resection my entire abdomen, removing all the unneeded (and unshrinkable) folds of skin. One to two weeks recovery time, six weeks of no exercise, six months for the scars to fade and I'll be ready for the beach in June!

A Veteran of Two Armies

I am a proud veteran of the armies of two nations. I served in the United States army in the late 1970s, then deserted America to join the army of Lomoxo in 1980. Let me explain.

Lomoxo is a fictional nation that has been at war with the United States for several decades. Their standing army has invaded Fort Benning, Georgia. They exist solely to harass and kill students of the US army infantry school, the Officer Candidate School, and phase three (Dahlonega phase) of the US army ranger course.

Lomoxo recruits almost exclusively from the nearby 11th Special Forces group, which I was attached to as a member of the US Army Reserve upon my release of active duty. In turn, we'd convince the "civilian populace" (usually high school/college ROTC or in a pinch, Marine reservists) to help us wage war upon the Army.

Life was never dull in the Lomoxo army. We'd stay up late at night one weekend a month and two weeks each summer making life miserable for soldiers. One memorable weekend had us successfully annihilate an entire platoon of 40 or so officer-wannabees without a single casualty of our own: on a field training exercise, both of their sentries fell asleep at 2 a.m. and we wiped out the imperialist Yankee aggressors in less than five minutes.

We occasionally "rioted" for the benefit of Army National Guard units training at Benning, and soon learned to carry gas masks in "urban enviornments" to prevent sob stories (i.e. tear gas cannisters).

Hunting sniper-wannabees was always fun too. They taught "cover and concealment" at Fort Benning, and they did a fantastic job of it. If we found a sniper-school candidate hiding in the woods, we'd get excused from night duty. Wonderful cat-and-mouse ensued. Sadly, I never caught one.

We loved finding bunched up groups of infantry together, because that meant it was time for "grenade fest" (throwing 4 pound cast iron training grenades at their positions). One time an OCS cadet reacted with reflexes I've never seen before or since, jumped up, caught the grenade with his bare hands and threw it right back at me, hitting me square in the chest. Ouch. (For the record, that was one of only two times I ever "died"). The guy who killed me is probably a General today.

I'm proud of my service in both of the armies I served in.

Nosy

Stopped by the neighborhood mailbox tonight to check the mail. A single letter which I immediately dropped on the ground. The arthritis in my back made it a bit difficult to bend over at the waist to pick up, but I somehow managed.

While I was completely bent over, I felt something very cold and very wet touch my right elbow. I'm literally looking upside down and backwards and see one of the biggest dogs I've ever encountered in my life nudging me with his nose.

With the benefit of hindsight (pun intended) I now realize it was a Weimaraner dog, but at the time I just saw a massive mound of grey fur, teeth and yellow eyes staring at me.

I jumped up, startled, and yelled. Three mistakes in a row. I scared the poor dog, who was just seeing who was at the mailbox, and he got into an aggressive defensive stance and started barking furiously. I tried giving him a wide birth and circled around the mail kiosk trying to get back to my idling car, the dog got it in his head that he was going to keep me from doing just that.

We did an awkward little dance for about thirty seconds and then Fido felt like he'd made his point and left.

Whew!

Storage Warrior

My Dad always says "if something seems too good to be true, it usually is". I try and keep that in mind when bargain hunting on Craigslist.

I found the exact piece of rackmount server equipment I'd been needing at work on Craigslist this afternoon. New, it costs $670. This guy wanted $200, and said the equipment was brand new in the box. Oh heck yes, I'm interested.

He gave me his address and I jumped in the car. I drove 20 miles to one of the most run-down places outside of Houston I've ever seen. A thrift shop in what can charitably be described as a decaying warehouse. I thought long and hard....no way there is going to be anything new in this shop, it looks like stuff I threw out in the 1980s.

Went inside and lo and behold, there the equipment was, in the original sealed factory boxes. Because I'm the suspicious type, I had him open the box for me. Yep....all there. I gladly paid $200.

Curiousity got the better of me and I asked him (after he'd loaded it into my trunk) how he'd come by it.

Well, he got hooked on the TV show "Storage Wars" and tried bidding on various storage units in default. He did "so-so" for the last two or so years, then last month he hit the jackpot: He paid $500 for a unit chock full of state-of-the-art computer equipment (server farms, scanners, network storage)....about $25,000 worth of stuff. He priced it to move at 20 cents on the dollar, pocketed about 6 grand total, and now, by God, he and his wife and kids are goin' to Disney World.

More power to him!

Jar Heads

Last night I was at the Met Life Family Center, and saw something amazing.

In the racquetball court there were about 30 twenty-something ladies from India, dressed in mirrored gowns and balancing what appeared to be 5 pound small brass jars atop their head.

An older lady off to the side caught me gawking and asked me if I'd like to give it a try. I laughed and declined.

She told me this was a dress rehearsal for a Banjarah (sp?) dance at an upcoming cultural festival celebrating India. These were the advanced dancers, and this was the most advanced dance they would attempt.

I watched them swoop and swirl and pirouette with these jars on their head, and wished I had that sort of balance. I'd probably need a flatter head though.

My breakfast with Tommy Lee Jones

Arrived at Atlanta airport this morning as part of the intense crush of people coming into town for the 2013 NCAA Final Four bastketball tournament. Sought shelter in the Airport atrium food court, sipping burned Starbucks coffee and reading my USA today.

Then Hollywood actor Tommy Lee Jones sat down at the table right next to me and things got very interesting.

Now, I'm not the type of guy to ask for autographs or anything, but I seem to be in the minority....there was a steady crush of people coming up to him and asking him for a picture and/or an autograph.

And here's the kicker: IT WASN'T TOMMY LEE JONES.

He looked like Tommy Lee Jones, he sounded like Tommy Lee Jones, but he patiently explained that he most certainly wasn't Tommy Lee Jones, he actually worked in the data processing department of Emory University.

I don't think anyone believed him.

After watching this spectacle for a good 10-15 minutes (including people basically trying to push me out of the way to get to "Tommy Lee", I decided that fame...even fame-by-proxy...has distinct drawbacks.

I was a First Class Jackass

Reading James Fallows' excellent essay on last minute bumps from first class airline cabins today reminded me of my own career as a "first class jackass".

It is the policy of AirTran airlines to give away unused first class seats to servicemen and servicewomen. I heartily endorse this strategery.

I had to fly once on very short notice from Washington DC to Atlanta. All the coach seats were sold, so I held my nose and spent my hard earned cash (okay....my company's hard-earned cash) on a full-fare walk up first class ticket. The sort of ticket that makes airlines obscenely profitable.

I board the plane at the last moment, and lo and behold, there's an Army private in my seat. The gracious flight attendant explains how I've purchased a seat and he'll have to return to his coach seat.

This did NOT sit well with my fellow first class cabinmates.

Much sniffing and tut-tutting and disdain ensued. I simply smiled and told my detractors that if they felt so strongly about it, why not offer their own seat to the private? I even offered a deal to two people: let's compare the dollar amount for the ticket paid on our itinerary. Lowest price could go to coach, no questions asked.

Gosh, it seemed my sanctimonious detractors didn't want to play my little game.....they were flying on comped upgrades.

First he wasn't, then he was...

While grilling outside earlier this past week, I opened the back door to my deck and a bright green flash bolted into my house. The most electric green lizard I've ever seen!

We had a fun time playing chase all through the house but I eventually gave up when he ran beneath the refrigerator.

Two days later, I was opening up a window and my lizard buddy jumped out at me from the windows sill....except he was dull yellow, the color of the wall!

How cool, I thought, a chameleon! We had yet another impromptu game of "Chase the Damned Lizard" and he escaped into a hole in the baseboard beneath the dishwasher....except every where he ran he left a trail of pollen. It wasn't a chameleon, it was a lizard coated in pollen!

This morning I got up and got the vacuum cleaner out. I switched on the motor and something large and BROWN flew across my brown floor. Yep. Mr. Lizard-who-wasn't-a-Chameleon is officially a Chameleon again.

Seeing as I haven't seen a single bug in the house since he's moved in, I'm leaning towards keeping him.

I'm going to name him Romney.

The Joy of "Pre-diabetes"

I had my yearly physical last year on my birthday. Okay, my birthday is in August but I didn't actually get around to having my physical until November, but hey I was busy...

I'm a year older and a bit more arthritic. As expected, osteoarthritis has arrived like a freight train right on schedule. Me and Celebrex have begun a lifelong intimate relationship together.

I had bloodwork drawn at my physical, of course. Results came in a week later. Losing weight (65 pounds!) has allowed my liver function tests to be normal, yahoo!

The only cloud in an otherwise blue sky was my fasting blood glucose test: it had ranged consistently between 95 and 99 for over 10 years, but this year it inched up to 100. Congratulations, Mr. Jensen, you're officially "pre-diabetic" now.

What does that mean? Oh, it's just a classification. I'm supposed to take the next step in diabetic testing, drinking 12 ounces of sweetened sludge and get my blood drawn for 2 hrs straight.

...not gonna happen.

My surgically sleeved stomach cannot hold 12 ounces of anything any longer, anything over 4 ounces gets flushed into my gut directly and screws up any and all lab results. Ooops!

So we go from stage 1 testing (fasting blood sugar) to skipping stage 2 (sweetened sludge) all the way to stage 3 (an a1c test).

Simply put, a1c measures how well your red blood cells process sugar for the past 3 months.

I had my a1c test yesterday, and got my a1c results back today. They were...interesting.

My number was 5.8

I compared that against my numbers from 1992, 1998, 2005 and 2008: I've been rock solid steady (ranging 5.7 to 5.8) my entire life.

So that's good.

I also found that they rescaled the "normal range" in 2010. 

 

Prior to 2010, "normal" was anything less than 6.0, abnormal was greater than 6.0.

In 2010, they broke it into 3 bands: normal (<5.7), "pre-diabetic" (5.7 to 6.2) and diabetic (over 6.2). So technically, I'm "pre-diabetic" on the new scale and "normal" on the old scale. Since my levels haven't budged in 21 years, I think I'm pretty safe.

They said if my cholesterol was high, I could lower my A1C by eating more fiber. If cholesterol was normal (and mine is), I can generally lower my A1C by eating less refined sugar.

Soooo....bottom line: less sugar in 2013!!

Gym Dandy

The first week in January is simultaneously one of my favorite and least favorite weeks of the year.

On the plus side, it's the only week of the year when I am guaranteed not to be the fattest person in the gym. It's also great for people watching there, huge crowds waiting to use gym equipment. People wearing their new exercise outfits, lifting gloves and especially weightlifting belts.

On the negative side, I cringe watching people do some really dangerous stuff at the gym. Slinging weights, dropping plates, and a myriad of technique flaws that must cause an average of about one torn knee or elbow ligament an hour.

I was doing incline bench presses today, trying my level best to concentrate on the bar, and overheard what can only be described as a "cougar attack" occur about 10 feet away from me: a 40-something woman, not in bad shape, pouring out her marital woes to a 20-something personal trainer. I wondered if he knew he was being propositioned.

In any event, I successfully tortured my chest and legs today.

You say you want a resolution?

To paraphrase the Beatles (they were a band that Paul McCartney was in prior to Wings)...

 ♫♫ You say you want a resolution....wellll, you know...we'd all love to hear your plan! ♫♫

2012 is in the books. For me, it was a pretty good year, a year of transition.

I'm looking forward to 2013. Every once in a while I get the urge to do a lot of  New Years Resolutions, this year is one of those years.

Sooo without further ado, here goes Bob's plan for 2013:

• Blog more. I enjoy writing short-form, blogs are the perfect vehicle for this. I want to make a conscious effort to blog at least weekly. (maybe I should have said "blog at least weakly"?)
• Earn my long-overdue Distinguished Toastmaster designation by May 1st, 2013
• Continue my quest to lose 100 pounds
• I lost 64 pounds in 2012 after I had my stomach sleeved ("stapled").
• 36 more pounds to go. I weigh 266 pounds today, January 1st, 2013. Hard to believe I was 330 pounds on June 1st last year!
• My first mini-goal is 260 pounds on February 1st, 2013. I will weigh less than my father on that date.
• My second mini-goal is 255 pounds on March 1st, 2013. On  that day I will be able to ride a Segway. I was crushed when I found out I weighed too much to take a Segway tour of Washington DC with my daughter last year....that was one of the deciding factors in my decision to have stomach surgery
• My third mini-goal is 246 pounds by May 1st, 2013. On that day, I'll be medically classified as being "overweight" and not "obese". I've transitioned from borderline "Morbidly obese" through "Severely Obese" and am now at plain old "Obese". I'll make a quick trip through "Overweight" to the final destination of "Normal".
• I will begin making motivational speeches this year. I am a very accomplished humorous speaker, and I can do dramatic and/or theatrical speeches as well. Motivational speeches are the one type of speech that is completely out of my comfort zone. Dramatic speeches were out of my comfort zone too, as recently as three years ago. I have a high degree of confidence to deliver any type of speech now, so I'll work on motivational/inspirational speechifying in 2013. I want to give at least 5 of them (if past history is a guide, I'll develop one or two motivational speeches and practice at various Toastmaster clubs.
• Help my "home" Toastmaster club, Cy-Fair Super Speakers, double in membership from 17 to 34 this year. I'm the membership chairman, I've done this before at other clubs.
• Save up for plastic surgery. I'm on track to lose 100 pounds, and realistically I'll need an abdominoplasty to remove extra sagging skin around my midsection. It's $20,000 here in Houston, or about $6,000 if I go the medical tourist route again. I'll probably choose the latter, as I had a lot of success doing medical tourism with my stomach.
• Upgrade my wardrobe..this sounds frivolous, but I have an extensive wardrobe that no longer fits me. I've tried getting suits altered but they have to be completely re-cut to accomodate the new, leaner me. This is going to be expensive.
• Discontinue cardio workouts for the first 6 months of 2013, and focus on weightlifting, particularly upper body. I have strong, muscular legs and a relatively weak upper body. I need to bring my upper body (chest/back/shoulders) in line with my lower body.
• Bench press my weight by the end of 2013!
• Take a "real" vacation. I've got a lot of vacation time saved up...and I want to go somewhere.

As you can see, I have a very ambitious 2013 planned....nothing but good times ahead!