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Six weeks down, probably six more or so to go. Truth be told, I’m a little proud of myself. I’ve updated my spreadsheet thinger every single day for the last 40-plus. And more importantly, I’ve been generally honest when calculating my intake, exercise, et cetera. Who knew Excel could be such a fantastic motivator? :)

Weight (7/16): 188 pounds, or 2.5 lighter than I was a week before, or right on schedule according to my aims. It feels good to be under 190 - getting on the scale each morning is just that much more exciting when I get to see and eight in the middle instead of a nine. Makes me feel even closer to my goal, since when a seven replaces that eight, I’m practically there.

Exercise: Last week was pretty darn good. I averaged around 400 extra calories per day burned exercising, most of which came from jogging. I managed a little over 9 miles of jogging last week (at just over 6mph average), on top of 6.5 miles walking the pooch. I even managed to fit in 45 minutes of lap swimming, which it turns out hurts quite a bit more than a 2-mile jog. :)

Intake: Less caloric variance this week. I never ate more than 1500 calories in a day or fewer than 1100. Chalk that up to luck - I ate out at El Aguila Real one night, Court Avenue a second, Hickory Park a third, and Star Bar a fourth. Jeez… I didn’t realize how bad that sounded until I counted. :) But I was able to talk myself in to portion control each of those evenings, and took home half of my food each night to eat as lunch the next day. Asking for a box is starting to feel normal.

Stay tuned, sports racers, as I’ll have a rather important announcement tomorrow sometime. And no, Amanda isn’t pregnant and we’re not getting hitched - it’s a blog-type announcement. Chill.

So I have decided that, as of today, I am a fan of Damien Rice. Why, asks thou? Well, I’ve loved “The Blower’s Daughter” for a really long time now. So long, in fact, that I’ve been convinced it must be a cover of some older song, cause I could’ve sworn I’ve liked this song since high school. I’ve even debated this fact with people, along the lines of:

“Who sung The Blower’s Daughter?”
“Umm… Damien Rice, I think.”
“No no… I mean the original singer.”
“I think he was the original singer.”
“Yeah, well I think you’re stupid.”

But now I’m starting to think that I must have been wrong. Anyways, that’s just the tip of the iceberg. It turns out, Mr. Rice also sings “9 Crimes,” also known as this song here (it’s gorgeous… you should listen). I didn’t discover that he was said singer until yesterday afternoon, but after that, I had some serious self reflection to do.

I mean, his music is lovely in a near-folky sort of way (edit: turns out he’s self-classified as a folk singer. Go figure). His timing is superb. His voice is simultaneously mournful and hopeful. His lyrics are just mysterious enough for me not to know exactly what he’s talking about, but just clear enough that I’m pretty sure I get the idea.

But, you know… he’s Damien Rice. And I’m pretty sure liking him makes me gay. So to compromise, I think I’ll just be a closet Damien Rice fan: I’ll listen to his music in private, and possibly discuss the beauty of his lyrics with The Ladies, but he’s not exactly coming out on Karaoke Night at the Rusty Cowboy Pub or anything. And nobody will be any the wiser.

Well, except for you persons, of course. But I trust you explicitly. And you can tell it’s explicit trust because I just said it. Implicit trust would have gone without saying.

So I’ve recently decided that I want a scooter. A Buddy 125 (125cc) by the Genuine Scooter Company of Chicago, to be exact. I’ve been considering getting a scooter ever since I moved to Des Moines and realized how feasible it’d be. So I did a lot of research and decided the Buddy should be the object of my idolatry.

Why a scooter? Well, I live a 10-minute drive from work, which could just as easily be a 10-minute scooter ride, seeing as how there are no major highways involved. I rarely exceed 40mph to or from work, so a 125cc scooter could easily keep pace. Scooters get mad gas mileage, usually at least twice that of the average car. And besides… I think they’re cool looking. Those who prefer crotch rockets or choppers might not agree with me on that one, but if you really think about it, can you picture me on either of those things? I thought not. :)

Why a Buddy? Well, certainly not for the name. Looks are high on the list, and I like the Buddy’s retro styling. Speed is also important, and the Buddy can do freeway speeds if need be. It can also beat most 150cc scooters off the line, so its acceleration is fine. And its gas mileage is good even for the scooter class: most Buddy owners claim 85-90 miles per gallon city, depending on location and load, while some even average out over 100 mpg. You can’t even squeeze that out of a brand-new hybrid car.

At the moment, there are only two things holding me back from scooter ownership. The first is that there are no Buddy dealers in Des Moines as yet. The closest is in Kansas City, requiring a road trip some weekend (and borrowing someone’s vehicle so I can get it back home). The second speed bump is that I’ve decided I would like to purchase the scooter outright, without having to make any payments on it. Unfortunately, the scooter runs around $2600 before taxes and so forth, and I don’t have that kind of money on-hand. I’m saving up as we speak, and am about 3/4 the way there, but that was the easy 3/4 (i.e., I had some savings already). I’m now in the squeezing-blood-from-turnips stage, so things are going to go a little slower. I’m selling a few things I don’t need on eBay, which will get me a little closer, and after that I’m just hoping to find some freelance web work to make some extra cash.

The goal is to have a scooter in my possession by the end of the summer, such that I can ride it to work all autumn before having to store it over (most of) the winter. I don’t know how realistic that goal is, but I’m going to do whatever’s in my power to see it gets done. Wish me luck!

I’ma keep this brief, because I’m hoping to blog about other things later in the day. Also, I missed a week, so this post summarizes both weeks.

Weight (7/9): 190.5 pounds, or 8 pounds lighter than I was two weeks ago. That seems a little high, but I think a lot of the weight I had two weeks ago was water retention and so forth. I’ve been hovering just above the 190-mark for a couple of days now. The good news is, that means I’m roughly halfway through my diet, as I’m currently shooting for 175 as a cutoff point. The bad news is, the easy half is probably over. :)

Exercise: Has started to improve again. I’ve started jogging again recently, which helps quite a bit. I’ve actually managed to jog a little under 5 miles in the last 24 hours - 3.4 miles after work last night, and a 1.3 mile jog with the pup this morning.

Intake: My diet varies more widely from day to day, but I think I’m okay with that. The least number of calories I’ve consumed in a single day the last two weeks was 950 on the 27th, for no other reason than I wasn’t particularly hungry and I hadn’t exercised much. The most I’ve consumed was three days later at 2250, which was a result of Amanda’s parents being in town and taking us out to Cosi Cucina for dinner following a long day at the art festival where I partook in gyro goodness. Still, my average intake over the last two weeks has been around 1450 calories per day, which is just about where I want to be.

Well, perhaps I was a bit ambitious when I said I’d blog the next day. Next day, next week/month… whatever. It’s all pretty much the same.

So here’s my promised Seattle writeup, but it’s almost time to go home for the day, so it’s going to be pretty short and generally not funny (much like Eric).

Wednesday (trip-out-day): I got to the airport around 10:30am. I was through security and at my gate by 10:45. Gotta love a sparsely populated airport (Des Moines International (they fly to Canada, and Canada is another nation (for very small values of ‘another nation’))). Then I sat there for a couple of hours, caught a quick flight to Minneapolis, and sat ~there~ for four hours. But I bought a book and a beer, so I was okay. Then I sat on the plane for ~another~ hour and a half while they figured out how to make the plane flap its wings or whatever the hell they do up front, then flew to Seattle, landing around 8:15pm Seattle time. Justin and his new girlie Danielle picked me up, and we went to dinner somewhere along a waterfront.

Thursday: Woke up around 6:30am, got ready, and headed for the conference. The conference ROCKED. I had a really, really good time, and I hope to get out to it again next year. If you’re a web-type guy and ever have the chance to attend An Event Apart: Do so. You will not regret it. That night I went to the afterparty (hosted by (mt) Media Temple) and drank way too much. Way. Too much. Stumbled back to Justin’s place. I may have bought some sushi on the way home.

Friday: More conference goodness, though it felt less good what with my swimming head and all. I felt a little better once I got some yogurt in me, which is pretty much exactly what you wouldn’t expect to happen, but whatever works. I had lunch with more cool people (even exchanged brief hellos with Mike Davidson), attended more conference, and then went home. There was an afterparty that night as well, but I decided I’d had enough alcohol for the time being. I fell asleep on the couch around 9:30pm, woke up at 11pm, and helped Justin work on his computer until 2 in the morning.

Saturday: Toured the city with Justin and Danielle. We had lunch at the Pike Place market, visited tons of cool shops, and then headed to the Mariners game and met a couple of Danielle’s friends there. The Mariners kicked arse, winning 9-1. I got my photo taken with a digital moose. Afterwards, we all headed to Justin’s place to drink some more. I got to bed a little after 1am.

Sunday (trip-back day): Alarm went off at 4:30am. Ugh. I kicked Danielle out of the bathroom, showered as quickly as I could at that hour (read: not quickly), and Justin drove me to the airport. I flew from Seattle to Memphis (it was ~humid~ there~), ran across the ENTIRE length of the terminal, and caught a plane halfway back across the country to Des Moines. I landed around 3pm. Amanda picked me up, took me home, and we headed out to dinner.

So! It was a really good trip all around. If you’re interested in more details about the conference itself, email me. I’ll spare you the gritty details here. The same goes for any alcohol-related stories you might be interested in (brief teaser: when the open bar finally closed, I had eight mixed drinks and two shots in front of me). Life has been pretty event-filled lately, so I’ll try to update more often to keep you all in tha loop!