Day 8 Wed - how to Party Bus Again!

Breakfast – 2, Lunch –3, Dinner –4

Missed Carb Opportunities:

·          Today is my travel home day. Sometimes my dinner on the trip back is whatever the NWA Worldclub offers. They don’t have a wide variety – string cheese, cheddar cheese, crackers, cookies (I think these cookies are hard and not worth my carb-lust), and fruit. I had three string cheese and one cheddar cheese. They stopped carrying the really good cheddar cheese (Cabot – from Vermont, but still delightful), the new stuff is just so-so.  

·         The Worldclub does have a nice cappuccino machine. But milk is high in carbs.

Interesting things for you to know:

I discovered this website: www.Stickk.com – the gimmick is that you make a commitment and then you also put money down on it. You can choose to pledge money to a charity that you don’t want to donate to, or a foe (you can also give money to a charity you like or a friend). If you don’t report in every week or don’t meet your week’s goal they send a part of your money to the pledge. If you make it to the end of your pledge they send your money back to you. – This seems like a better way to do these challenges. Rather than reporting out to you, maybe we should put money on it.

I was thinking that I might continue this carb limiting thing and put up some money to be used for a party bus adventure if I don’t make it… perhaps others would be willing to do so as well? We could have a large party bus fund if everyone found something they wanted to commit to (and failed, but let’s not mention the failure part). If we make it, then we have the party bus adventure to celebrate (and we get our money back from Stickk to pay for it!)

Take a picture of your dumb ass kid

http://www.photobasement.com/41-hilarious-science-fair-experiments/
Building upon my previous post about how our children must not being doing much learning during the day.
But, these made me laugh.
and, I have great confidence in our country's future powerpoint presentation creators. These kids know how to capture your interest!

Day 7, Tuesday - on site - corn fritters nearly got me!!!!

Breakfast – 5, Lunch – 5, Dinner – questionable… but likely under 10.

Missed Carb Opportunities:

·         Bagels in early morning meeting. I like the cinnamon crunch covered ones a lot.

·         Truffles in early afternoon meeting. Why do they keep trying to feed me here? I am seeing a trend.

Interesting things for you to know:

1)      I actually like beef jerky.

2)      Other people don’t like beef jerky.

3)      This means they won’t steal it from you.

Day Summary:

I nearly freaked out because I ate an entire corn fritter at dinner and breakfast and lunch added up to 10. I only had 10 left! But, then I realized that I didn’t have any other carbs for dinner, so maybe it was okay. We would have to calculate it out- the fritter I ate was only 1.5 inches in diameter.

Step 1 – find recipes for corn fritters and figure out the carb count for a single 1.5 in diameter fritter.

 

This one says serves 6, but I can’t imagine it only makes 6 fritters…

3 eggs, beaten
2 cups crushed corn
2 tbsp. milk
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tbsp. melted butter
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. pepper
1 1/4 c. flour, approx
Oil for deep frying

 

This one says it makes 1 dozen small fritters, but the first recipe seems more like the one I ate.

1 egg
1/4 c. milk
1/2 c. flour
1/2 tsp. salt
1 can drained corn
1/2 tsp. baking powder

 

I am estimating that they used the first recipe, but it makes 3 dozen small fritters. That is 6 per person and seems reasonable I guess.

Step 2 – calculate the carbs in the whole recipe = 185.2

3 eggs, beaten  - 1.5
2 cups crushed corn - 62
2 tbsp. milk – 1.4
1 tsp. baking powder – 1.3
1 tbsp. melted butter -0
1/2 tsp. salt - 0
1/2 tsp. pepper - 0
1 1/4 c. flour, approx 119
Oil for deep frying -0

 

Step 3 – total carbs in 1 fritter: 5.1

 

Step 4 – sigh with relief. Then be anxious again because that recipe can’t make 36 fritters, it doesn’t seem big enough. Augh. Well, even if it only made 18 fritters I was still very close if not under my 10 carb limit for dinner.

Morality of atoms... what????

http://www.madison.com/tct/mad/topstories//index.php?ntid=274336

this kind of thing bothers me, and makes me want to send a check to the Freedom from Religion organization (headquarters, Madison, WI), or some sort of group to finally educate the idiots of this country about science. - while on this rant, I want to mention that on my Cato Daily podcast I heard about how two different international education studies have shown the US once again in the middle to bottom of the pack. Decreases during the No Child Left Behind program have been seen. I refuse to believe our children are dumb. We need to stop acting like math and science are hard. Hell, our kids are obese, so they must not be spending their time in PE, and the media talks all the time about cutting music and art programs... where the hell are these kids all day?

the gist of the article is in these paragraphs:

Nanotechnology is a branch of science and engineering devoted to the design and
production of materials, structures, devices and circuits at the tiniest
possible scale, typically in the realm of individual atoms and
molecules.
Scientists see huge potential for advances in computers, medicine
and many other fields.
But the survey of 1,015 adult residents of the United
States found that only 29.5 percent found that nanotechnology was morally
acceptable.

umm, nanotechnology is just putting atoms together into small structures. very small instead of the size you can see unaided. What do these people think plastic is? Do they have a moral objection to their tupperware?

gnnrr.

Day 6 Monday - 14 carbs

Breakfast – 5, Lunch – 0, Dinner – 9

Missed Carb Opportunities:

· I am on another trip and I couldn’t get my favorite room service dish: calamari. Because of the breading. Sigh.

Interesting things for you to know:

Nothing today

Day Summary:

Traveling is hard. You have to plan ahead, otherwise some ill advised airport food will sneak up on you.

rape is off the list

I had a nightmare last night about raping someone. No good.

I am taking rape off the list.

But, I will still be shooting someone. I guess.

Day 5 - Just didn't eat that much - 17 carbs

Breakfast – 2, Lunch – 0, Dinner – 15

Missed Carb Opportunities:

· None, I was great!

Interesting things for you to know:

1) Prunes have a lot of carbs. Dried fruit in general does. Why was I eating prunes? Perhaps I was trialing some TopChef style meals. What I learned – Braising is good. Prunes and Bourbon over lamb is just okay.

Day Summary:

Those prunes put me higher than I would have liked. But, you will notice I made it successfully to day 5 and feeling fine!

Day 4 Saturday- close! - 19 carbs

Breakfast –2 , Lunch – 17, Dinner – 0

Missed Carb Opportunities:

· Bockfest at Capital Brewery. I had about 5 oz of the Blonde Dopplebock beer. It wasn’t that great, but I still would have liked to drink it all. Plus more beer. Lots more beer. Thanks to Ding88 for finishing most of my beer.

· Cheeseburger in Paradise – Ding88 and my post Bockfest lunch destination. I would have liked to have fries, breading on deep fried pickles, and the hamburger bun. Oh, and ketchup.

Interesting things for you to know:

1) Ketchup has lots of high fructose corn syrup. Beware.

Day Summary:

I skipped dinner to make this count. My rumbley-tummy wasn’t too much trouble.

Day 3 Friday - carbs: 18

breakfast: 3, lunch: 0, dinner: 15
I ate dinner at Samba, the new Brazilian style steakhouse in Madison. It was fun. Most of these carbs came from wine. a very delicious muscat.
different than a muscrat.
which would have been 0 carbs.

My day without consequences

Per the Essay Tuesday administrator: Today I have no consequences.
I hate to even tell you what I immediately thought of doing. I have known for a while now, actually since the day the topic was published, but I didn't want to admit it to all of you.
I have to come clean.
I am going to kill people and possibly rape women.
I am horrible. just horrible.
I will also probably finish the day with several Pecanbons from Cinnabon because I love them.

How will I kill people? Well, let's be honest, no need to hide the evidence. In my day without consequences it is as if my actions never happened once we get to tomorrow. So, let's do it up.
1) I spend the morning learning how to fire R's gun. I do this by shooting out windows in my neighbor's houses. specifically Dee from across the street, the trashy people who LOVE to use their leaf blower (who the hell ever heard of using it to blow snow out of your driveway! for god sake's you trash ass motherfuckers!!!!), and Vic (the gardening, toothless, pipe smoker) and Fran who never acknowledged the very nice gift of applebutter I gave them for x-mas.
2) eat delicious lunch and hit Selective Video to buy things needed to rape people.
3) late afternoon of shooting random people.
4) spend early evening going from bar to bar getting into fights.
4)late evening of raping women. - finish by eating pecanbon.

I feel bad just writing this, but these are things that you just can't do in the real world and in my day of consequences even if I get caught by the police I will wake up in my own bed and none of it will have happened at all.

Day 2- thursday - carb count 19

Breakfast – 2

Lunch – 4

Dinner – 13

Missed Carb Opportunities:

Midwest Airlines warm chocolate chip cookie, R’s delicious caramelized onions with my dinner

Interesting things for you to know:

Willy St coop doesn’t have a good meat selection. I wanted steak, but had to settle for chicken/turkey sausages. Which were delicious, but not steak. I realize it is probably obvious that Willy St Coop wouldn’t have a wide meat selection.

Day Summary:

Good day. I was riding high on my low breakfast and lunch counts, and then dinner got a bit high for me… close to the wire, but I think I was generous with my counting, so I am sure I was under.

notes from the airport

Airports are odd places to be. It is even more odd since they don't allow people in here unless they have a ticket. and aren't on the TSA list.
Some of these people have to be on the list. I just know it.

other thoughts:
airport bathroom stalls - I can not gracefully exit a small bathroom stall at the airport with my roller bag and backpack. I get in there fine, but then I have to do some crazy leg manuevering to get the door open (it opens in, invariably) and get the suitcase out. 9 times out of 10 I end up straddling the toilet and my calves touch it. yuck. plus, I then have to sort of shove my bag out of the stall first. If anyone has any suggestions for better ways to execute this manuever I am open for suggestions.

open letter to the Chinese people gathered around a computer in front of me:
Hi, I want you to enjoy your time in the Milwaukee airport. I do. But, I also want to NOT have to listen to your DVD play on your computer. They are "personal computers" for a reason, we all don't want to listen to it. Buy some of those headphones with splitters.
Cell phone technology has progressed to the point where you don't have to shout. But, I understand why you thought you needed to shout given the crazy noises coming from your DVD playing on your laptop. Pause works on laptops too.
Just saying!
Lucia.

Today's art

Here is what I doodled today. Don't ask about the disparate (sp?) themes. I don't know.

Day 1 Wednesday- Success - 17 carbs

Breakfast – 2

Lunch – 7

Dinner – 8

Missed Carb Opportunities:

· I went through my on site food supply. I didn’t have to throw anything away, but the following items had to go into hiding: 2 Lean Cuisine frozen meals (10 and 12 carbs), 2 servings of barley/vegetable soup (14), almond cookies (7), and GoLean (20) and All Bran (7) cereal boxes.

· Delicious thin, crispy onion rings that accompanied my steak unrequested

· When traveling for work, 4 dollar lattes are practically free. Except carb-wise.

Interesting things for you to know:

1) An egg has ½ carb. They aren’t “free”

2) Bacon and massive bone-in ribeye steaks are “free” – bacon is possibly the single biggest reason why Atkins is such a popular diet.

3) Cheese – more carbs the softer the cheese is. Don’t go low fat, it has more carbs. In fact that is a rule of thumb. If they take out the fat, they put in sugar.

Day Summary:

The first day is always good and bad. It is good because your resolve is fresh. Bad because your body is still in glucose lovin mode. And my cells love them some glucose.

conference call art

Carb Counter

http://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/foodcomp/search/index.html

A challenge for myself

I want to be harder on myself than others. I want to improve over time. I try to spot my own personality flaws and work on them. Sometimes I spot them, but can't help myself.
A good example:
I am competative. It drives me like nothing else. I create competitions where there are none.
I try to be the best dressed person in all of Dayton, OH.
When invited to a party I am secretly trying to have the best gift, the most eaten dish, and the funniest stories.
I am ashamed to admit that I like beating people. Even in charity events.
I try to hide it, but am probably very transparent in my need to compete. I have seen several instances where people didn't invite me to participate in something, likely because I am going to make it into a competition. I understand.
The reason I bring this up -my friend 11 Frogs was doing something very nice for herself - trying to be a vegan for two weeks, and a vegetarian for Lent. This is nice and good and she has done a pretty good job laying bare her progress and small set backs on her blog.
I hate myself. But I want to try something similar to see if I can do better than her. Egads man, what is wrong with me? 11Frogs, this isn't about you and I am sorry. You have done an admirable job. I have some internal defect that forces me to do this.
Why would I even put this on this blog? Perhaps I hoped to absolve some guilt by publically declaring that I am a jerk. But mostly I have to have someone to judge my success, it is part of the competativeness. I couldn't just do this secretly because no one would acknowledge my success. I can't just tell R and have him judge me. I have realized that he has virtually no competativeness and will often tell me whatever I want to hear.
Also, I think that a blow by blow account will be funny.
I am not going vegan because I like having animals work for me. It pleases me. If I could get those damn dogs to carry the groceries up the stairs, believe me....
I am going to stay below 20 carbohydrates per day from today through March 6. That is 15 days. I have something on March 2 and I would like to eat and drink freely, so I will take off from 6pm to midnight.
If you think this will be easy, you are silly. take a look at everything you eat - a typical slice of bread 15 carbs - one can of Coke - like 32 carbs - worst of all, beer - my favorite beer, Sierra Nevada Pale Ale is 12 carbs.

To keep me honest I will tell you all the carbs I eat each day and all of the delicious things I missed during the day.

Dog ownership versus SUV ownership

http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2008/02/dogs_and_the_en.html

I vote for dogs and out with all SUVs. I don't really understand why the question was posed, but I can't believe the transportation costs for all components, waste materials, fuel consumption, natural resource drain of an SUV even compares to the creation and maintenance of a dog. Animals are far more efficient energy producers and create that energy from vegetation as well as animal products (that get their energy ultimately from vegetation). It bothers me that this blog post has no economics actually contained within the post. I was looking forward to some cost/benefit quantitative information from a blog called EconLog: Issues and Insights in Economics.

Why not ask SUVs versus gardening or grass lawns? or golf courses? (I vote for ridding the world of resource sucking, fertilizer/herbicide polluting golf courses)
dogs are good things.

I did some more reading and my favorite was a linked post and this comment on the post. I sort of want to contact John and see if he is single. :)

Not even a close call.
Dogs live about 10-13 years, assume the same for SUVs.
SUVs indisputably have a higher production cost. (Assume we just talk about marginal cost to environment of +1 SUV and not even about the cost of setting up the SUV plant; likewise, assume cost of +1 puppy, setting aside cost of mom and dad dogs.) I don't even believe you could rationally argue otherwise.
For arguments sake I will even concede that a dog and a SUV have the same annual impact on the environement. How (1) a SUV and dog could give off the same amount of CO2 or (2) producing dog food would cost as much as drilling oil, with the resulting geopolitical impact, or (3) a SUV -- which routinely run over and cripple school children -- and a dog -- which on occasion might give a child a small bite -- possibly have the same impact just boggles the mind. But I'll even concende, for now, that the two are even -- just to show you how bad of a question this is.
Disposal costs. Again, not even close. Try burying a dead SUV and a dead dog, after he has passed on (due to natural causes) to doggy heaven, in your yard. Just try and tell me that you it took the same effort and your yard looks the same either way. Then give it a couple years. Come back and tell me which one works out better for you.
The only way you could even make it close is some make believe world were you warp the issue into marginal environment cost of a SUV vs. a minivan and a dog vs. an empty petless existence.
Seriously, what does it take to get a job with the MIT econ department? Is Boston so cold that no one else will take this job? Is it the sports teams?Posted by: John on February 11, 2008 08

four years and two months ago

It has been a long time since I attended a meeting and I felt like this.

I am sitting in my first team meeting for my new application and I feel… well, new. New meaning, I don’t know anyone, no one knows me. I imagine all of these people look at me and think, who is this and what is she doing here?

They probably aren’t.

This is a lot like the feeling I had at my first team meeting for my former application. At that meeting I got called out by the division head to tell a story.

Most of my stories aren’t appropriate. And Really not appropriate for your first meeting.

I stumbled through something. Those of you that think I am good at improvising or impromptu speaking should have been at that meeting.

 

Sexy red shoes coming out on Sat night

Tommy and Whitney, steel yourselves. the red shoes make their nightlife debut on Saturday night at Tommy's party.

Advice on Business from Lucia

Here is some more of my famous business advice:

1)      No meeting should take place without an agenda and some follow up afterwards. If the meeting doesn’t require these things then YOU DON’T NEED THE MEETING! Go immediately to a bar and just hang out for an hour. Everyone will be more satisfied with the use of the time.

a.       In this same vein, don’t send out a meeting request with only a vague title as the purpose/agenda for the meeting. I don’t know what you mean by “Future Strategies”.

2)      If I send you an agenda for a meeting – could you read it? Thanks.  – double clicking on an attachment is hard, but not impossible.

3)      Once you have read the agenda, you should realize that the entire point of the meeting is you giving me information. The meeting will go more smoothly if you gather this information ahead of time. And come prepared.

4)      If you refuse to read the agenda or come prepared with the information that is the core purpose of the meeting, you should feel bad. You should not just blink at me when I ask you for the information. Is a little shame too much to ask?

5)      When I send out the notes from a meeting with your tasks to complete highlighted and with a small checkbox next to them, it means you should do them. By the date in the notes.

6)      I am not “forcing dates on you” (as I overheard you say to your coworkers), we all agreed on the dates in the meeting.

7)      When, at the next meeting, I ask the status of your tasks (per the friggin agenda!), don’t say that you will set up a meeting to take care of it. That isn’t going to have it done by last Thursday. At a minimum you should have read the agenda, felt ashamed that you didn’t even start your task from the last meeting, and set up that meeting already.

8)      When you miss a milestone and I call you out on it, don’t say, well, what is the drop dead date on that task? I didn’t put the date on that milestone so you would have a date to miss, I calculated when you had to have this done to complete all the other tasks. Geez. And, if we push it back to a later date, well, that means that you will have to do other tasks faster. Which you can’t do, I know you.

9)      If you miss that second date (let’s use the example of a spreadsheet compiled by 10-31-07, but you missed that and wanted till 2-15, but your meeting isn’t even set up until 2-15 and you know you can’t get it done on that day…) don’t ask me for the drop dead date. Dude, you are already dead.

Standing Sinusoidal Wave explains everything!

A similar, yet different, situation from my last blog post that I felt I needed to explain.

the wave cancellation analogy

This analogy is for my own interpersonal dynamic with people that are similar to me. There are lots of examples, but one good one was a boy that we will refer to as T39O. I had some friends that were friends with T39O, they thought to themselves, Lucia and T39O are very similar and this could really work out. When we got together it was true, in a group of people we were very similar, BUT, it could never work out because we cancelled each other out! neither could be as funny/entertaining in the presence of the other.

Think of this as each person has a wave. This wave has:
an amplitude (how high on the graph it goes, or how much displacement it has - in real life I think of this as the dynamicism that someone has to their personality, but dynamicism is how I define my personality versus others, you may have another displacement equivalent)
a wavelength (the distance between two sequencial points or bottoms (crests or troughs, but I don't want to confuse you)) - my personality equivalent of this is just the "get it" quality of you - so I move at a certain pace, I find certain jokes funny, I tell jokes/stories this way, I am sarcastic and cynical, etc.
a period and a frequency, this is the time factor, but I am not including the time component in this analogy as it is already difficult enough for the mathematically challenged. We will use a standing sinusoidal wave to make things easier.

In the above graph, the red and green waves have the same amplitude, but their wavelength is different. These two people would not get along.

So, the way that I think about this is - every person has their own wave. It has a distinct wavelength and an amplitude. I assume that the majority of people I meet have a completely different wavelength and most have a different amplitude (usually lower) than me.

When you do finally find someone with a similar amplitude and a similar wavelength, you have to test it out. Because, if you overlap two waves with their wavelength is off by 1/2 of one wavelength, they cancel each other out!

Below is the graphical image of what happened between me and T39O. (note, for the image effect, I made the grey line a little higher than it probably should be, as the amplitudes cancel each other out- basically, not to scale.)Sometimes, the waves come together and amplify each other (note in real life if they lined up exactly the amplitudes would add together, so this one isn't to scale either) - in the below graph is what I imagine happens with me (black line) and my friend Todd (blue line), we get more amplified (red line). - also notice that Todd is a bit "off", I like to think that I bring him a bit more towards the normal than he pulls me to the "off". of course, this is all just a theory, but it does give me a graphical way to think of relationships.

Introspective

I was waiting for R to get ready one night. and found that my kitchen food cabinet is PERFECT for taking pictures of myself with the timer on. I took a bunch, trying to convey different emotions. It turns out, as we have discovered during "Pose like you are..." sessions, that I don't do some emotions well.

Here you have me "introspective"

and that befits the topic of this blog post - you like group A, really enjoy hanging out with them, and you like group B the same way. Why does it never really work out to bring them together? It makes me question how I could befriend groups of people that are so different. Am I different with the two groups?

I have noticed this throughout my life, but it doesn't stop me from trying to bring these groups together on a regular basis, typically to a less than fun conclusion.

I am also coming to realize that R is sometimes more right about human interactions than I give him credit for. In prep for a party he asked who was coming, and when given the people, he shook his head in his calm way saying, "you can't have two different groups of people come... that never works"

I sort of dislike it when he is right. I prefer to be right, even when he won't admit it.

Dog person

Loud just posted about the discrimination against cat people: http://tootwisted.blogspot.com/2008/02/cat-people.html

I have to be honest, I have the same bias against cat people.
I once saw a guy that had a cat. I used this as an example of how he was not well suited for me. Aren't single guys with cats odd? I think so. - hold on a second. I seem to remember two men with cats. neither lasted long.

Single girls with cats are perceived poorly as well. It is that whole spinster mythology. If a girl has a cat she is immediately pictured at home alone with her cat, eating a pint of HaagenDaz in the glow of her TV.

This made me think - what about single girls with two dogs? I like to think my dogs make me more attractive. why?
1) I go to places with the dogs and they attract attention from others to me - this means I meet more men. - not that I have ever met a man at a dog park or vet's office or anything. I would like to though.
2) My dogs are trained. This proves that I have control over my life and the ability to exercise discipline. I don't know how this is attractive to men. a certain type of guy maybe.
3) I seem outdoorsy because of my dogs. Once again, perhaps this is just a certain type of guy.
4) men like dogs. mine are very lovable, so if the guy falls in love with my dog he will fall in love with me.

Unfortunately, while compiling the above list I thought of a lot more reasons my dogs make me attractive to a lesbian.

at least when I say I have two dogs people don't picture a spinster. They might imagine me a lesbian, but I don't care. Men like lesbians.

not one but two surprises under my mattress

I got to the hotel late last night - delayed flight due to weather. I was tired, but I made sure to iron my clothes before retiring. So, I was really tired when I finally pulled back the covers and climbed in. augh! there was a board in my bed, and it wasn't even all the way over. I had 8 inches from the edge of the bed of squishyness and then hardness!
I reached under the mattress angrily to confirm that there was board in the bed.
That was when my fingers hit something that wasn't a piece of plywood.

I pulled the glossy magazine out. it was a porn magazine.
I was puzzled for just a second, but then was like, whatever.
But, it wasn't really one I liked.
So, I put it back.
and went to wash my hands.

I am not going to tell anyone.
it sort of makes me smile that my bed and I have this secret.

How to pick your candidate

Loud had some interesting methods - relentless internet tests. Being challenged by random friends of friends in a car.

But, you could do what this guy does. Seems in general a good way to do it. I like the chart and the count, seems scientific to me.

I am glowing today with positivity

1) my partying quota is high for 2008 as a result of a raucous weekend in the Kank. - I am a good partier, but I just don't have the liver nor time nor energy to do it four times a week like I did when I lived there. Getting a whole weekend devoted to it was good.
2) I moved teams at work and I love my new boss/team/job. The kind of situation where you didn't know how unhappy you were until you got out.
3) Party bus - wow. one of those sorts of things that you expect to be good, but are shocked at how much better it is than you imagined.
4) We got 2 shotgun events into the weekend - so my count is up to 5. since we are 35 days into 2008, this is right on!

Reason for you to be nice to me

no one showed up for lunch yesterday until 10 after, and it was the annoying guy.
I cancelled lunch.