Beginning to get healthier

I’ve known I’ve needed to make some lifestyle changes for quite a while. I’ve been having more trouble bending over and also with buttoning up my pants. But the straw that broke me was when I stepped on a scale recently and saw 248 looking back at me. I’m back almost to my all time high. I haven’t been carrying around this much weight since I left Nevada. It was a pretty sobering moment.

When I was living in Iowa I remember weighing in at 245 and doing something about it. I used a combo of Wii fit and Sparkpeople.com to bring myself down to 210. My goal has always been to get down to 180 or lower, but I was ecstatic about dropping down to 210. At that time a couple things happened; The first was that I considered myself accustomed to figuring out the approximate amount of calories that were in things, so I stopped using the sparkpeople calorie counters. Not long after that I injured my neck.

I was doing a lot of repetitive motion with the casino, along with certain bad habits. But those weren’t the proximate cause. During my weight loss I didn’t bother to pay attention to much beyond protein and calories. Not enough nutrition caused me quite a bit of lancing pain. Since I needed to take things easy to mitigate pain I fell off from my weekly workouts and gained back some of that weight. I stopped losing weight, but I was able to maintain it through yoga classes at Lifetime fitness, and then working at Menards. Moving freight is a great workout, though having to move so many 200lb grills alone really took a toll on my back.

But here I am again almost at my high. I’ve started using sparkpeople again to count calories, and I’m taking a few supplements. Those along with some of the knowledge I gained by going through physical therapy should help me prevent most possible injuries. The condo complex I’m living in has a couple workout machines so I can get my cardio on, and I have plenty of Kinect games on my xbox to get me moving too. I like destroying Mos Eisley as a Rancor!

Edit: Just noticed my last post was also a fitness post to get back on track, though from almost a year ago. Walking around on the concrete floors of Menards messed up my knees something fierce, which was what originally got me taking supplements. The big problem I had there though was that I was moving a ton for up to twelve hours a day. I was also in a bad place mentally then, so those changes didn’t get a chance to stick. I’m much better off mentally now, so I think I have a better chance of making it work.

Wii Fit!

Well I finally got out the Wii fit again. And boy was I surprised when I found out it had been over a year and a half since I last used it! Granted, I had a lifetime membership for most of that time, and a yoga class is much better than Wii Fit yoga, but I never took advantage of it those last few months and pretty much just wasted my money. But so I pulled out the Wii Fit, probably in better physical shape than the last time I used it, and 10lbs lighter!
But I realize I need to keep myself motivated to consistently work out, whether that be Wii Fit or other exercises. So here’s my challenge to myself: Work out in some form at least every other day. To keep track I bought a calendar for the remaining portion of 2013 ($2.50 on clearance!) Every day I work out, I will put that day’s sheet in a pile. Every day I miss, I will put that in another pile.

At the end of the year, if I have more in the made it category, I will buy myself a fancy top hat!
I do have a top hat already, but it’s kind of small on me. Perfect size for my sister or girlfriend to wear, but small on me.

However, if I should fail, I need a suitable punishment. Ummm, I’ll get my Back and/or Chest waxed?

Revisiting an old story

When I first started writing, I needed a kick in the pants to get going. I decided to try NaNoWriMo, and actually succeeded in getting to the goal of 50k words. I did that by the barest of margins, crossing that threshold with a bare hour left in November, but I did it. I was so proud. I never ended up finishing that story. I realized there were some major structural holes, and I needed to refine my skills as a writer before I felt like I could tackle it again and polish that first major gem into a sparkling jewel.

A couple years have passed, the hard drive that contained the only copy of it has since crashed and all that data has been lost. But I still have the note-card outline I created, and I’ve finally looked over them in preparation for starting it all over again.

After looking through those note-cards, I have to throw 90% of them away. That’s how crappy it is. I expected there to be major changes, but 90% of it? Yikes! About the only parts that have survived this initial culling are the major end/beginning of act turning points, and the final Quarter of the outline which was never a part of the original 50k words. That original 50k words only encompasses parts of the 1st and 2nd quarters of the story I had planned.

I have a lot of work ahead of me in replotting this novel. I do think that I backed up a few small parts of that original 50k to my Writing.com account, but I’m hesitant to even look at them now. The only parts I think I actually took the time to back up, well, they contain interactions with characters whose relationships I already know are going to dramatically change. The first part villain is going to stay very similar, but the three young protagonists are going to wildly shift, as is the setting. I don’t think I even want to look at that early bit, should it actually still exist, until after I recreate it. If nothing else, it’ll be a great way to compare my writing then to my writing of this near future!

Gatecrashing at Midnight!

Ahh, another prerelease, andother night to enjoy some strategery and new card smell! Played in the midnight sealed deck last night with my buddies at Dreamers games, and had a fantastic time. The cards in the new set are fun, and winning as much as I did made it even funner! Aj and Myself played Orzhov, Freddy played Simic, and Matt.E actually decided to play for the first time in quite a while pulling out the Grueling Gruul.
So at midnight we started opening our boxes and checking out our bounties. We started off with our Guild packs, and AJ got the same bomb rare as I did: Orzhorva, Ghost Council! Hells yeah! I rounded that out with some very solid black cards, and a regular Treasury Thrull to go with the ALt-Art Prerelease Foil. I toyed with the idea of tossing in some Red for a few good Boros cards, like Legion Loyalist or Boros Reckoner, but decided my other cards were too strong to want to include a splash, and I didn’t have enough White Tilt to warrant inclusion of the Reckoner. Turns out I needn’t have worried a bit.

First match my opponent is playing Dimir and gets off to a strong start. Sage’s Row Denizen, Dimir guildmage, and Nightveil Specter. Then I got some Extortion going, fired off both my Executioners Swings, and slowly took it over. Second game he didn’t stand a chance. Got out my Ghost Council on turn 5 and took that to the house with some Shadow Alley Denizen granted Intimidate.
Second Match I play the First guy’s Wife. She had a very good deck, or at least some very good draws. She really should have won the first game, and could have made the second game much closer than it was. Basilica Screecher was my All Star against her, especially when it was wielding Riot Gear. First game I killed her when I was at 1 Life, though if she’d remembered about using some Extort triggers she would have had me before I got a chance. I reminded her about drawing a card for her Prophetic Prism, but when she forgot to Exile one of my guys with her Luminate Primordial, I wasn’t about to remind her. She remembered to exile my guy in game one, but not in game two. She could have beat me.
Match three was against Matt.e, and wow were those good games. Game one he had every answer he needed at just the right time, taking out my blockers with his pair of Pit Fights, Ground Assault and Gruul Charm, and even Homing Lightning. He decimated me. But games two and three I got the beats going. He was able to deal with my Treasury Thrulls and Guardian of the Gateless, but Ground Assault is kind of useless against the Ghost Council, which I got out in both of the latter games.
At that point it was 4am, and being 3-0 me and my final opponent decided to draw and leave with a guaranteed 6 rather than duke it out for the extra 2, and get some sleep. I pulled an Aurelia from my prize packs, so I left quite happy. And we’re going back to do it all again at 7pm tonight! I think I’m gonna try Boros this time…

Habits

It’s amazing to me how natural it is to slip back into old habits. Now that I have my own place again, and all my things are here, (if not all unpacked and put away yet,) I’m finding myself reverting to some behaviors I had when I lived in Iowa. Probably the most important one is my eating habits. When I moved back in with my parents after graduating, I slipped into several High school eating habits.
Those ones weren’t healthy in one bit.
But part of that was because that kitchen isn’t my space. It’s my mom’s, and my stepdad’s. This kitchen is unequivocally MINE. It’s maybe only half unpacked, but I’m eating healthier already, and after just over a week can already feel a difference. Except for those occasional frozen pizzas which were on sale for 1.98 at work last week, I’m doing better than I have in a long time. I know I was eating more, and eating less nutritious things, when I had less control over the contents of the kitchen. Now I just need to stock up on herb and spices so I can make even more good things.
I yo-yo’d with my weight this past year and half. Up, down, back up, and now I’m hoping to start that difficult downward trek again. I’m aiming for under 200. Haven’t been there since first year of college.
Then there’s the other side of the health spectrum, the burning off of the calories consumed. I know I’m moving more, just the little movements like dancing or some morning exercises. My things are spread out now, not slightly cramped like in the room I called mine this last year. Sure most of my things were stored away in my grandma’s garage, but what I did have with me was too much for that room.
That house just wasn’t mine, not like this apartment I have. This is my Domain, my Castle, my Sanctuary. Here, I can move and groove to my heart’s content.

New year, new apartment, and now Toyota has decided to be cute

It’s been a fantastic start to the new year. Promotion, and getting my own apartment in a new city. I got into my place at the end of last week, spent the majority of the weekend moving and setting things up, and after getting internet and TV installed yesterday, am just now getting around to all the tedious things like updating my address for all the little services that we have in this modern age.

SO I’m updating them all, and am about to change my info for my car loan, and what the hell am I seeing here?!? The address is good, but whose phone number is on this? My phone number is in there too, as the mobile number, but there’s a number I don’t recognize at all in the home address. The only thing that’s familiar about it is the area code, a 952 for that area of the mpls suburbs. I’ve never had a 952 number. I used to have a 612 number back before I moved to Nevada, but was forced to change it when I switched cell phone companies. But never a 952.

It’s not like this hasn’t happened before. It’s new with toyota, but it did happen when I moved back in with my parents after I graduated. At that point, it was Allstate sending my email billing to my sister’s email address. How they got her email, I have no damn clue. My email, which I’ve had for about a decade, was still in there, only moved to the secondary email. And she never had Allstate, only State Farm.

It really pisses me off when something stupid and inexplicable like this happens. Are these companies trying to be cute or something and automatically bring outside info in, even if it might be wrong? I just typed my phone number into all three spots, home cell and business. It best not be changed from that.

Things are looking up

My life has really begun to come together, and I’m going to be starting off the new year in a very good place. Both literally and figuratively. For one thing, I’ve been hired as an assistant wallcoverings manager at the Dundas Menards. My last day at the Eden Prairie Menards is tomorrow, and I will start down in Dundas on Wednesday the 2nd. Gives me the weekend to look for someplace to rent, and with any luck, maybe I can even begin to move into a place on Monday or Tuesday!
As some know, I got into the Manager Training program at the Menards I was working at, and the goal of that was to obviously get into a management position when I finished it. I locked into the wallcoverings department about halfway through it, for several reasons. One of the biggies is that things don’t fully click for me unless I get some hands-on experience doing it. Like the T-Squares in accounting. I still didn’t understand those until I actually used them during my internship, balancing the accounts in the Casino’s Main Bank. Being that I’m a bit more likely to move around while moving up, I’m better off renting rather than owning. That means I’ll be extremely limited in opportunities to do anything with general construction, installation of doors/windows/cabinets or appliances. Receiving and front end are vital to a store, but there’s nothing to them that I could really take with me to improve my home life with. Hardware and Plumbing have a lot of things… a whole lot of really little things. Not as appealing to me in the short run as other options are.
But why Wallcoverings over Electrical? I could use knowledge from both areas outside of work to improve things. The big reason is paint. Creative endeavors spark my interest. I marvel at the people who are able to play an instrument, strumming out a tune or pounding out a sweet melody. Or those that can put a brush or pencil to paper and bring an image to life. Writing is a passion of mine, and I think I want to make an attempt to bring out my creativity with paint at some point. Might as well learn the ins and outs of paints with my job, and then have that knowledge ready should I make the time to experiment there.
Also my dad has worked with electronics his whole life. Arcade Games, speaker systems, Pinball and Jukeboxes. I can lean on him for some electronic knowledge, and most of the rest seems pretty basic. There’s plenty I don’t know, but I have a better rudimentary understanding of it than paint, and I have a more immediate interest in paint.
Speaking of my creative endeavors and my writing, after my last post I’ve decided to create another blog dedicated specifically to flash fiction. There’s several reasons, though I’m not going to flesh them all out here. Suffice to say I’ve decided to keep this Blog as random musings and Magic decks, while starting up another just for short fiction.
http://dtsflashfiction.wordpress.com/
There’s nothing posted there yet, but I’m planning on popping out something before I turn in for bed tonight.

Flash fiction

I’ve fallen off the literary train recently, haven’t written anything of substance in quite a while. I failed utterly at Nanowrimo this year, but I had other priorities taking up my time. Now that I don’t have quite as much taking up my valuable thinking space, I’ve gone back to reading some more. I just finished two books in this last week, Neuromancer and Neverwhere. Good reads those, a little off the path from what I usually read but I enjoyed them.

The next step for me in getting back on the literary train is Flash fiction. I define flash fiction as something anywhere up to 1000 words. I would say the little item below is well qualified in that regard. Enjoy!

As he lay there before me, holding his intestines within himself, I had to ask.
“So Tim, what is your middle name?”
“Ah already -cough- told you.”
“There’s no way that’s really your middle name.”
“Truly it is. Me Ma never much liked it, but me -cough- dad was just that much of a bad-ass… he made sure was on the papers them hospital folks gave ‘em.”
“Seriously?”
He smiled at me once more, then Tim Motherfuckin’ Williams passed away.

I LOVE GOBLIN GRENADES!

Since Magic 2013 came out, I wanted to play a goblin deck. Well, tonight was my last chance to do it.Next week I won’t be able to make it to FNM, and then Magic 2012 rotates out. So I did it. I made a goblin deck, and with some help from Freddy on most of the 12 cards, I piloted a goblin deck.

Land 22
Mountain

Creatures 18
4x Goblin Arsonist
4x Goblin Wardriver
4x Goblin Chieftain
3x Adaptive Automaton
3x Krenko, Mob Boss
1x Hellrider

Spells 20
1x Dual Casting
3x Pillar of Flame
4x Goblin Grenade
4x Krenko’s Command
2x Increasing Vengeance
1x Reverberate
2x Arc Trail
1x Brimstone Volley
1x Devil’s Play

SB
2x Arc Trail
2x Combust
3x Smelt
2x Dismember
2x Act of Treason
1x Brimstone Volley
2x Devil’s Play

I piloted something very close to this to a 3-1 finish tonight. I know the SB and spells are off a little from what I played, but I’m lazy and don’t feel like digging it out to check. When it worked, it was fantastic! There were a few games it got hung up, like my first games in each of my first 2 matches, but other than that I loved it. If I wasn’t working so late next Friday and could use it again, there’s very few changes I would make. I would cut the Devil’s Plays entirely, as they were less than stellar, and pop in the other 2 Brimstone Volley’s I forgot at home, along with finding a fourth Pillar. The singleton Hellrider worked well, and I rode that in my fourth match games.

First Match, the guy needs to adjust his mana base. Talked to him later and turns out he was only running 20 land and 2 pristine talismans. Getting both talismans was the only reason he won the first game. I just couldn’t keep up the pressure against continual lifegain like that. Then I stomped him in games 2 and 3 as he never reached that fourth mana for Day of Judgement, showing it in his hand after both.

My second match, the one that I lost, that was just stupid. I got Mana screwed in the first game, and then the second game I would have won had I not made a colossal mistake. Oh well though, as I didn’t even playtest before the tournament. 

Third match I got nearly perfect draws.
1= Arsonist;
2= Command;
3= Chieftain;
4= Krenko himself. I won the second game swinging with 17 2/2 goblin tokens

The final match, I almost felt a little bad. The kid was playing burn, but he just didn’t have enough experience. He made a big mistake with a miracle card, so he had to wait and hardcast it a couple turns later. He should have won that first game against me, but he decided to concentrate his burn on my four goblin tokens rather than aim it at my head. He could have had me, but oh well. Second game I just stomped all over him.

So I got 4 prize packs, and I am very happy to open a Foil Disciple of Bolas 🙂 That card is gonna get sick at some point soon. I have a feeling there’s a very powerful BRG or GWB deck just waiting to be discovered with the new cards coming out in Return to Ravnica. I’m so looking forward to this coming block. I’m sad the rotation will take Goblin Grenade with it, but meh, it’ll be back someday.

 

 

Committing Blasphemous Acts with a Stuffy Doll; V 1.0

Since M13 came out, I’ve just been drafting. In my first draft I opened up my prize packs and saw, much to my surprise, that they decided to reprint Stuffy Doll. Cue a big smile across my face.
Now I’ve built a deck around Stuffy Doll, and some combos with it that can make for a very fun kill. I’m still debating about a few cards, but for the most part, the following list will be what I’m playing with at FNM this week.

Edit: Whoops! First post only had a deck with 56 cards in it.
1x Kessig Wolf Run
4x Rootbound Crag
10x Forest
8x Mountain

4x Llanowar elves
4x Viridian emissary
2x Borderland Ranger
4x Solemn Simulacrum

4x Stuffy doll
3x Blasphemous act
3x Into the maw of hell
2x Revenge of the hunted

3x Garruk Relentless
3x Huntmaster of the fells
2x Inferno Titan
2x Brimstone Volley
1x Devil’s Play

For SB cards I’m thinking

2x Ancient Grudge
2x Harvest Pyre
2x Ranger’s Guile
2x Dismember
3x Autumn’s Veil
2x Flames of the Firebrand
2x Thunderbolt