Going into this winter I had 3 resolutions/ projects1) Clean up My Workbench and Desk
2) Add 20% new music to my MP3's
3) Lose 10-15 lbs
Number 1 & 2 are not as easy as it seems. I truly believe in the pile system—if it is not obvious that something will be immediately needed or very important in the future, it gets thrown into a stack. Especially when work and cycling take up so much time. Such a large stack developed on my roll top desk that the roll top couldn't be closed. These are some of the treasures I've found since jumping in and either filing things or actually throwing things out..
1) 2000-01 Golden State Warrior pocket schedule, where they proudly exclaim they have the lowest bowl prices in the league.
2) East Bay Bicycle Coalition Vol. 33 No. 2 Newsletter (February 2003)
3) Gourmet Equipment Catalog sent to prior occupants of the house-from Winter 1999.
4) Note from backyard neighbor (since moved, in fact the folks who moved in after him were reposed) indicating his apple tree is growing over the fence and he'd be more than happy to come over and prune it. Note is from August 30, 2003.
5) Emergency Room wristband from 4/1/2003 with name of stupidass Emergency Room Physician who didn’t examine my busted knee because he thought I walked into hospital on my own power (o the memories.).
6) Receipt for a computer backpack bought at UC Santa Barbara in January 4, 2003 when my daughter, who has long graduated from college, was looking for a college to get into. (Think they’ll take a slightly used backpack back?)
7) 4" round Milliken Carpet sample--must have envisioned it as a potential coaster.
8) Credit card receipt from Tipica Trattoria Etsusca, 9/4/2004, $92.90 Euro--dinner for four in Orvieto. Great food--got us off of the disgusting "gourmet farm."
9) Donnie sent me an email for a "Trader Joe's List: and I emailed back 8/23/2002 for her to pick up "a few hot sausage packs, soy milks, one orange luna bar for sun am." Bike picnic?? Long before ever thinking of eating in Italy.
10) Proving I really don't care about plays--an August 4, 2002 ticket stub for STOMP at the Marines Memorial Theatre. Don't remember a thing about it.
11) Another important receipt for black pocket shorts from a sporting goods store in Florida. Oh, they're too big now let me take them back. Receipt from January 13, 2003.
12) The real treasure. A $30. BART ticket, bought on '022801', from back in the day when they kept a running total of the amount on the same ticket you used over and over--which was paper and became dog-eared fast. (today you get a new thicker plastic coated ticket with the new amount only after every use) It still had $19.30 on it. I thought it wouldn't work and I'd have to get the station agent to issue a new ticket, but to my surprise the 9 year old ticket was still processed by the turnstile.
13) Five 8x10 photos of the Polo Grounds, one signed by 5 NY Giants, a signed Patti Smith photo, and a "the Doors" photo signed by Ray Manzarak--all should have been framed long ago.
14) WHY YOU SHOULD NEVER THROW ANYTHING OUT. I have the greatest day backpack for short trips (narrow. small but holds enough, with perfect pockets, good water bottle holders) that my wife keeps borrowing for traveling. Its a 'Black Diamond' that I bought years ago--but there is no model name of number identified on the pack and the 'Black Diamond' daypacks we've seen in the store are different. So--when almost finishing cleaning my desk I found the little catalog that came with the backpack with a label identifying the model--with this info I was able to quickly find it online and order one for my wife.
I have now gotten rid of these treasures. Likewise, down in the garage new lights were hung to replace the fluorescent that long since stopped working properly. Being able to now see, many of the "spare" nuts, bolts, screws, angle irons, pieces of string, drill bits have either found a like minded container for similar objects (empty Tums containers) or have been tossed. Shelves were built and a mini shop vac purchased so sawdust doesn’t turn to mold.
So the cleanup has rolled along.
The music has not got off the ground. I have about 700 mp3's that I love, but I have heard them so often (played at work, in the car, and when I'm around the TV) that it sounds like 7 songs over and over. Of course the Sony Random feature is so bad it may be 7 songs over and over. In any event, I have about 2 dozen cuts on CD's I need to convert to MP3's—but actually I first have to equalize their sound as a WAV file so the volume is consistent between cuts. Good way to do things but time consuming. I also have a list of 3 dozen cuts I previewed on Rhapsody that I need to purchase. Somehow, every night I figure I'll do this tomorrow.
Part of the reason the music project keeps getting delayed is, with an eye towards the Alta Alpina 8, I’ve made a big effort to lose weight. So no staying up with a midnight snack until 1 am. Also, reducing calories in the winter I’m colder than shit (yes, I know I live in sunny California) but 65 degrees inside now feels like the North Pole. But with a reduction of riding now is the time to lose weight, as when we start riding heavily I gotta keep stoked up on carbs.
Orange line weight, blue line daily calories, red line daily calorie goal to keep under (2200 net baseline calories to maintain weight with no activity.)I’m being anal about the whole thing and counting calories to try to stay under the '2200 NO activity' calorie baseline every day.(1) **On days riding I get to raise my baseline by 200-250 calories an hour, which is still a net loss as estimates are 500-900 calories burned per hour of moderate to hard cycling.(2) **In any event I’ve dropped 9 pounds in two months, and am now at 140, last seen in early 2004 when I was nervous about racing and century rides and depressed as hell (a great combo for not eating.)
Since then I’ve been around 148, going a few pounds over 150 if I don’t watch myself and going down to about 145 when super motivated around the Mt. Tam Double. So hopefully we can keep this going to the Alta Alpina Double, and hopefully it will also be real warm real soon so I can take my stocking cap and fleece vest off indoors..
(1) Government Calorie baseline indicator at http://fnic.nal.usda.gov/interactiveDRI/dri_results.php
(2) Two cycling calorie indicators
http://www.healthstatus.com/cgi-bin/calc/calculator.cgi
http://www.nutristrategy.com/fitness/cycling.htm
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