Monthly Archives: October 2014

DAY SEVENTY-EIGHT: Shufflin’ Along

100 Days

Shuffling boxes of stuff around.

Made an appointment with a real estate agent. He will be out to look over the house this coming Wednesday. Over the phone, the prospects do not sound good as far as getting enough out of the property to make a move worthwhile.

Ear ache. Hoping I’m not getting sick again. Rinsing ear with 50/50 mixture of vinegar and rubbing alcohol. That was the suggestion I got from a doctor years ago for dealing with ear infections like swimmer’s ear. It usually works.

DAY SEVENTY-SEVEN: 201.4

100 Days,

201.4 pounds – up a  pound since last week.

Spent a couple of hours going through every folder in my file cabinet looking for the title to the PT Cruiser. Could not find it. Finally looked online. The City/County still indicates the “owner” of the car is First Hawaiian Bank, even though the loan was paid off about ten years ago.

Nothing is ever easy.

I telephoned the bank. I was told that I can bring proof if identification into the bank to request a copy of the title. Then I must take the duplicate title to the Department of Motor Vehicles to transfer ownership… to me.

Today I moved almost thirty plastic storage tubs from The Room of Doom into the neighbor’s garage for temporary storage. Thirty tubs. And yet the room is still almost impassible. This is starting to feel seriously crazy. I am going to go sort more boxes now. Boxes of books. I don’t know how I ended up with so many boxes of books. I purged books a couple of years ago. I thought I had greatly reduced the number of books. Apparently not.

I realized while moving the thirty-odd storage tubs that I must become significantly more ruthless in my purging. I need to reduce the volume of stuff by at least half.

We have an appointment with one real estate agent to look at our house on Saturday afternoon. Two others have not yet come back to us to schedule a time.

DAY SEVENTY-SIX: No News… is Typical

100 Days, ,

Last night the sky actually cleared, allowing the lunar eclipse to be visible. I set an alarm to wake up about 11:00 p.m. The shadow crossing the face of the moon became visible around 11:15 p.m. I set up reclining lawn chairs, and my spouse and I sat out in the yard until nearly 1:30 a.m. watching the progression of the eclipse. We also saw a number of shooting stars and lightning flashes along the distant northern horizon.

Today I walked another 13 miles. My Nike+ Sportwatch battery quit at the 19km (about 11.5 miles) mark. I had not recharged it since my previous long excursion.

Hauled the last of the relatives’ leftovers to the Salvation Army thrift store this afternoon.

While walking I had ideas for longer, or at least more worthwhile, posts to add to this site, but by the time early evening rolls around I’m too tired to think, too discouraged to care, and I can’t remember what I was gonna write about anyway.

I’ve been listening to audio podcasts on an iPod while walking. I used to try to listen to music or podcasts while running, but I gave up after too many iPods succumbed to moisture and vibration. Since I’m merely walking, and thus not sweating quite as much, I’m using the iPod again while walking. After listening to an episode of The Rocking Self-Publishing Podcast featuring independent author and indie-writing blogger David Gaughran, I came home and ordered the Kindle version of Gaughran’s recently updated book on independent publishing, Let’s Get Digital. I gotta get rolling again on the self-publishing stuff. That’s one of the purposes of this blog, to provide “writing practice.” So far that “practice” isn’t paying off, is it? I’ll start reading Digital as soon as I finish the short fiction eBook novel I’m currently reading, Joseph Lovece’s The Steam Man of the West: The Transatlantic Race.

I need to find the title to my car.

DAY SEVENTY-FIVE: Room of Doom

100 Days,

Spent most of the day shuffling through stuff in The Room of Doom. I had grand visions of getting through everything. Instead, I cannot actually see any signs of progress. I need to be more ruthless about discarding things. I need to be faster and better at organizing.

Fighting off despair. Or tying to. Despair is on the cusp of winning.

A total lunar eclipse is supposed to be visible here around midnight. Of course the sky is currently (6:30pm) completely overcast.

DAY SEVENTY-FOUR: Fat Thighs

100 Days, ,

Yesterday’s intended perambulation did not materialize; instead, I found myself shanghaied into shuffling around baby cribs and strollers and assorted infant-related nonsense – all stuff left behind when my spouse’s relatives moved out a week ago. Now this stuff is stored until who knows when so it can be donated to charity. GoodWill Stores already refused it, saying they cannot accept cribs or strollers due to liability concerns. My spouse thinks one of the other charity organizations will accept the stuff. In the meantime, it’s more clutter and more stuff to shift back and forth and up and down from here to there.

On a more positive note, even though I determined that the two laptop computers left behind when the relatives moved were not economically feasible for me to repair, I was able to sell the pair on eBay for $225.00. In fact, it was my fastest eBay sale ever. I snapped some photos yesterday afternoon and posted the listing with a $99 starting bid or a $225 “Buy It Now” price. The lot of two sold within a minute. In fact, they sold so quickly I emailed the buyer to make sure he (or she) realized the computers were in “as is, not working” condition. The buyer confirmed the transaction and paid immediately via PayPal. I shipped the box today. Of course, the $225 isn’t pure profit. I offered free shipping, which cost me $20. The eBay commission was $23. The PayPal fee is about ten dollars. Ultimately, I will pocket about $175 from the $225 sale. Still, that’s not too bad for two non-working computers that were discarded.

As I noted, yesterday’s planned “long walk” did not happen, although I walked about a mile on the beach. Today, however, I completed a thirteen mile walk of three hours thirty-nine minutes from the house to partway up Long Road and back. There was a time I could have run most of that way, but now, at two-hundred pounds, that’s not happening. I walked the entire route. Now my Fat Boy Thighs are feeling the burn, quite literally – friction burn from rubbing together. I’m hobbling around like a cowpoke who has spent too long in the saddle.

We still have guests. I am still eating too much.

DAY SEVENTY-THREE: Not So Rockin’

100 Days, ,

(R)October is not so rockin’, at least so far. I walked 17.75 kilometers, or a bit over ten and a half miles, yesterday. Today my weight is up by a pound and a half, to 201.6.

We have relatives visiting through Tuesday. That always means more and bigger meals than usual. I haven’t made any progress on decluttering or house repairs in days, or even weeks.

I hope to be heading out for another ten mile walk here in a few minutes. I need to work my way back into running. In my previous experience, I have found that walking, no matter how far, has little impact on weight loss. I gotta run to make it happen.

I also need to clean up my diet. That’s the most difficult part. Specifically, giving up Coca Cola is the most difficult part.

DAY SEVENTY-TWO: (R)October Break

100 Days, , ,

Saturday, 4 October 2014. First day of Fall intersession break from work.

Weight: 200.0 pounds

Credit Card Debt: $21,835.00

What can I do this week to address these concerns?

First step… well, okay, second step. The first step was to pay my credit card accounts that were due – mostly the minimum payment, o’ course. The second step is to get out for a long walk. My distance goal is 10 miles today. I’m going to try to hike up Long Road aka Mokuleia Access Road. Long Road is part of the Peacock 100 trail run route. I was hoping to participate in the Peacock 100 this year. Instead, I got lazy, stopped running, and gained back 40 of the 35 pounds I lost last year.

Exactly one year and one day ago, 3 October 2013, I was at my lowest weight in years, 11 stone 7 pounds, or 161 pounds. Then, on Friday 4 October I set out on a week-long road trip through Colorado and New Mexico with my friend Roger. I set my diet and exercise plan aside and lost all momentum. I only gained a pound while on the trip, but that was in contrast to the two or three pounds a week I had been consistently losing since the previous mid-June. A week after my return I had gained four more pounds. I made a couple of half-hearted efforts to get back on track between November and January, but it didn’t happen. By the end of January I was up to 12-1/2 stone, and here I am today with the morning scale reading exactly 200 pounds, or 14 stone 4 pounds.

My credit cards are all maxxed out. I have three dollars remaining in my bank account. I weigh 200 pounds (BMI: 27.9 ). I’m fat and broke. What a way to start a vacation.

I’m gonna go fill up a water bottle and hit the pavement now.