Rantings of a Lunatic

So the run today was incredibly brutal because I spent the weekend finishing the unpacking. I have been here for 6 weeks, and I had pretty much moved in already, but I finally got off my butt and finished unpacking the last of the boxes that will be unpacked. It was a fair amount of stairs, and lifting, so when I got on the treadmill tonight, on an aggressive new running schedule, I felt my calves and shins tighten up immediately. I know that I will be sore tomorrow, but I am enjoying the pain right now. The run was a good one, 3min jog, 90sec walk, 5.5min jog, 2.5min walk, 3min jog, 90sec walk, 5.5min jog, with the customary 5min walk to warm-up and cool-down.
I also wrote a bunch of code today, which gave me a little trouble, but not nearly the amount I expected. I am writing some backend metrics scripts for a proprietery app I have been working on. Its a pretty cool feeling, because I have the privilege of writing a couple of stanzas, and then thinking of another feature that would be beneficial, and having the place and opportunity to get it in there.
My code isn’t as OOP as I would like, and I need to convert some of the code into functions and maybe methods for code re-use purposes, but it works and its fast. I hope I can say the same thing in a few days when I start doing my first attempt at converting a hodge-podge of codebases into a set of hopefully clean and usable ajax scripts.

Today has been steadily going downhill, with every pause the next level of the pass has seemed lower than the current one. That is not the Outlook I want to share though, so bear with a little background and then I will explain why its not really that bad.
On Monday I called ATT because it had been a week and I had not been contacted by their service department to tell me when I would finally have internet at home. We went over the upstream fiber issue, and they set a new install date for Wednesday from 12 to 2, and said it would take up to 4 hours. I asked one of my supervisors, who said it would be ok, and planned on working from home for half the day today. This morning, I got into work, and things were going ok. I was progressively having problems with a server, but that’s what I get paid for, so whatever. At noon I took off, figuring if the tech called me, I would be on the road, and he could wait, a little vengence for all of the late arrivals in service history.
Around 1:45, I get a call that the tech is running late. I start getting mad.
At 3:30 the tech calls and says he is on his way and will be there in 15 minutes. When he gets there, he says, oh, they didn’t fix the fiber problem, let me see if I can get a fiber tech out here. He also said he form’t get my order until 3, and gave me his cell. That was cool.
He spent about anhour making calls, trying to get it resolved, then left eventually saying the other tech would be out today, and to call him after or tomorrow to set a new install time.
At 6:40, there was a knock on the door, and the fiber tech came in and confirmed he had fixed the problem, but it was too late for Curtis to come back out. I said ok, fine, its been 33 days without internet at home, what’s a couple more? I had given up and was about to go for a run, so I did that when the fiber tech left.
When I got to the gym, there were a pair of people on the treadmills walking slower than snails. So I used the other machines for 40 minutes and gave up on waiting for them, and just ran home. I had been trying not to run outside yet for a couple of reasons, (heat, no pockets for my phone, exchange policy on my shoes, etc) but I did.
Then I decided to go get a chicken ceaser salad and a beer, because I didn’t feel like cooking. When I got to Opal’s I found out that had been off the menu for a year. Guess I have been eating too many Tuna Melts. So I got a garden salad with grilled chicken and chipotle ranch on the side.
I was a little disheartened, but when I got it, I was reading a post from Dumb Little Man, about eating healthy, and my whole view of the day changed. The salad was great, the post reaffirmed my healthy eating, and I thought about my perspective.
If you think positive, things tend to work out better. And I want that more frequently. I want to transform my point of view to looking at how annoyances maybe blessings instead.

Over the last several months, there have been some drastic changes in my life. About 2 months ago, Kelly and I decided to split up, and about a month ago I got my own apartment. This is a dramatic change on its own accord, and it has provided me the opportunity to re-evaluate my life, and its direction. I am trying earnestly to be more honest to myself and the people around me. I think part of this is that I am not really interested in telling people what they want to hear, I am more interested in telling people what is true. In looking back, I feel like I have been the person that I thought people wanted me to be for a long time, and looking forward, I am not really interested in that.
While Kelly and I lived together, I specifically watched my point of view on several topics change, and to some degree polarize. I know most of this is due to my values changing based on the situation I was in. I spent a lot of time thinking about how to protect and take care of us as a humans, and probably not enough time thinking of us as a couple. Now that I am single again, obviously, I am reverting back to a method of taking care of myself as an individual. The little nuances are the things that I am noticing about it. Such as cooking dinner. I used to think it was difficult cooking for two people. Its not hard, but the portion seems wierd. However, I find I am still cooking in that same portion, and now I am eating leftovers more often. This is not a bad thing, its just a point where I need to add more food storage containers to my grocery list. And, I also recently realized how much I rely upon a spice rack for cooking. I was making some fish recently, and realized all I had to season it with were salt and pepper. This has mostly been remedied, but the spice rack will continue to grow in the future, a little at a time.
A scale was something that I kept putting off picking up, and now that I am furnishing my own apartment again, its one of the things that made it up higher on the list. The first scale that I got was broken when I took it out of the package, so when I took it back I spent a little extra, and got one that claimed to be able to read body fat and body water content levels. I am not sure that its one hundred percent accurate, but, its an interesting feature, and it has helped me to get motivated to start running. I have never been a runner, and for a long time I have probably mocked runners and health nuts, but its a way for me to change my outlook, and so far I am enjoying it. I am only starting now, but, my goal is to be running a 5k in a few weeks. I am not going to go register for any runs, I am really only doing it so that I can lose some weight. I would not consider myself overweight, at least not in comparison with the American public, but I am definately a little soft and round around the middle. And I have a deep fear of ending up the size of my father, so as I start to stare 30 in the face, now is the time that I need to start actively taking an interest in my health. I feel like I probably should have done so several years ago, but I don’t think dwelling on the past is a healthy way to head into the future.
Another area of my life that I am trying to take the opportunity to change is my social skills. I have traditionally been a very solitary person, and when Kelly and I were together, I saw that we as a couple became that way too. Part of this was the addiction to WoW that we both had, but it also just became part of our routine. And I am consciously making an effort not to fall into that sort of hidden solitary life again. I have been trying to spend time with the people I know, and though it is very uncomfortable for me, I am trying to extend myself to the point where I can make new friends. Part of this is that I am not an outgoing person, and part is that I have spent the major parts of my life on opposite sides of the country, so the friends that I had as a child have disappeared, and the friends I had from college are not in this area. Now, there are obviously exceptions to both of those statements, but that is the normal outlook.