A Good Imagination and a Pile of Junk

what a delightful lunch.

I just got back from a near 13 hour day so I’m gonna go fall over like a sack o’spuds.

So if you follow me on Facebook you’ll know I’ve been lusting after the 27″ iMacs lately. You know… for development.

It started last week when I was checking prices on macs for a friend of mine. I went back and forth with a couple people about whether they were REALLY that good, etc. I checked prices and bank accounts, bopping my head in acknowledgment.

Today I walked in to J&R and let the salesdrone accost me so I could bug him about cpus, lust after the thing, and such suchness.

I almost pulled the trigger right then and there, bringing the thing back to the office, lugging it back here. But I bowed out, realizing that the smart thing would be to wait for the monster paycheck I’m getting on Friday to cover last week’s madness.

I got out of the subway in Brooklyn at about 5:20 (suck it, plebes) and remembered I had to pick up my laundry. As I walked in to the atm thingie I thought “ouch. There’s $35 down the drain.”

and I stopped.

physically stopped.

right there.

And I thought to myself, I thought… “Self? What the…”

So apparently I have almost NO trouble dropping a quick $2500 on a dev box, but $40 on laundry makes me flinch?

“But it’s for development!”

What development?

I’m not DOING any development.

I haven’t written a line of code in months.

I don’t particularly WANT to write a line of code. Sure, there a couple quick hit perl scripts I want to write. Maybe even a couple dozen. And yeah, I’d like to go teach myself some ruby/haskell/erlang/clojure/go or something.

But on the whole, development just doesn’t get my knickers all in a wad very much any more.

So whiskey tango then?

I’ve just crested the first rise of being back on my feet financially. My balance is going steadily up.

The last two years has been plagued with this feeling of being financially hamstrung. Always in focus were the things I couldn’t do while maintaining any sense of temperance.

I’ve been lusting after furniture, new computers, music, instruments, trips. All kinds of things kept out of reach by a basic sense of self preservation. (That might be the beginnings of adulthood peeking through. No no, the other … oh neverind.)

I know how positively sensual that feeling is, making a big purchase. Taking the hours I’ve kibbitzed with managers and slaved over shitty code and turned it in to something shiny and wonderful that’s MINE.

And it’s good. That feeling.

But of all things, a computer? Computers are the razor sharp double-edged swords of my life. If I knew what else I would do I’d walk away from them entirely. But now, after all these decades? Well… I’ll keep looking at least.

No. It would be a dark thing for me to buy another shiny brand new computer. A different platform no less! One that I’d stay home, experiment with and ADD over for months and months.

Pushing off my actual goals that much farther.

It’s just fucking time.

I’ll see y’all back here in a bit.

I have to focus.

put on your helmet

So I’m sitting here in a towel and glasses (Settle down ladies.) having just showered after an hour and change on a cardio machine.

I’ve never done an hour on a cardio machine. I’m not saying it’s some huge achievement in the realm of human fitness. But I was pretty damn surprised that I hit that groove. I could have easily gone another. But I figure I should stop and give my knees a couple day recup, just in case I was getting all endorphiny and ignoring some horrid damage.

After all, I’m getting old.

This also (I suspect not coincidentally) marks the first time I brought an mp3 player to the gym. I’d played around and started with a couple tracks in a tentative ‘workout’ playlist. It was upbeat stuff with a nice rhythm, some consistency, etc.

Seemed right.

Wrong.

I TOTALLY misjudged what was important about cardio music.

First: Strong percussion ONLY works when you’re in near perfect sync. Otherwise the phase mismatch is like listening to … uhm… yeah, I’ve got no idea. But it’s really bad.

Second: Frenetic guitar and metal works really well. HOWEVER! Heed my warning plebes!

The use of the title track from Joe Satriani’s album “Crystal Planet” should be avoided at all costs unless you’re Usain Bolt or whatsisname Armstrong. Listen to the end to see what I mean.

At the final note (at 45:22 in to my workout) my eyes rolled back in my head as I gasped for air after 4:35 of alternating between holding my breath and screaming. I fell backwards and cracked my skull on the floor behind me, which was of little note as my heart had exploded out of my chest, sending my soul skyward.

The universe became whiter than white lighter than light and I was overwhelmed by the sense of crossed arms and a cosmic tapping foot. It was then I knew I was in The Presence.

“Seriously!?! That’s your ticket out?” He bellowed.
“Oh, fuck. Look ya gotta give me a mulligan on that. Dick move I know. But let one slide, I got shit to do.”
“If I EVER…”
“I know I know. Jesus Christ, how much harder do you think you need to hit it.”
“You INSOLENT…”
“eep”

And I was on the machine, pumping away. The time read 41:47. I picked up the zune and changed the track, looked up and winked.

But the Chemical Brothers works great. I recommend the “Exit Planet Dust” album.

So yeah, there’s that.

Joined the gym last Monday for reasons both righteous and puerile, though admittedly I wonder some times which is which. With that membership you get a trainer evaluation session and two half-hour sessions for an additional $30.

Now, some of you might remember about five years ago when I had a personal trainer for three or four days a week for the better part of a year. I always said I’d rather be homeless than abandon my gym membership. Ah, youth.

It was a tremendous expense. But it was the only thing that got me to go. Inertia is my Achilles’ heel. At the time my thinking was that at least I understood that, so I could at least play to my strengths and isolate my weakness. It worked for a while, though it was a nontrivial lifestyle hit.

The silly season came around and scheduling got a little wonky with my trainer. Add to that the fact that I torqued my right elbow badly enough that most weight exercises were out.

So I stopped.

I think that was in 2005, might’ve been 2006.

Last Monday work was unbearable and I’d forgotten my zune (yes I have a 64g zune HD. Yes I initially bought it out of spite against apple. Turns out I like it more than the iPod) back in Brooklyn, which is a scant 20 minutes from the office (commute’s pretty rough for the new job ;).) So I hopped on the 4 and came back for it. I blended and drank myself a banana strawberry smoothie (still can’t believe this crap) and wondered what I was going to do with the rest of my time.

I thought about the next phases of life and realized that now that I’m beginning to get in to a groove with an actual income, it’s time to stop living like an unemployed programmer, especially with regard to my health.

So I swung by New York Sports Club on Remsen st. (A word to you Equinox fags: Hardwood floors, managers with cufflinks, trainers with fake tits and New Age soundtracks do NOT make for a better work out any more than the extra $50 a month does.. Have a nice heaping spoonful of go fuck yourselves you pretentious gits.)

I walked in the and asked the guy at the desk “I need to talk to someone about joining.” As I stood there, someone was coming down the stairs and the kid behind the counter pointed to me, looked at him and said “walk in.” He waved me to follow as he turned back up the steps.

One of the trainers I recognized from the before time came down the stairs and gave me a hearty hello, ethnic hand shake and a “welcome back!” I’m aMAZED he remembered me.

But then, I have a tendency to enter a room when I enter a room. (he says with what modesty he can muster.)

Yadda yadda no no I don’t need the dog and pony show. Where’s the beef? what’s the cost? Can I start tonight? I gotta get back to work.

Sign here, here and… there. Handshake. Hasta. Out.

I came back that night for my trainer “evaluation.” (where evaluation evaluates to “ass kicking.”)

In doing exercises, I kept seeing myself in that same gym, four years earlier. So when he said “push ups” I thought “35″. What I got was 11 and a string of subvocal swearing that would make a hooker blush.

Again and again I drove myself to a point of physical instead of mental failure.

At one point I was so light-headed I felt consciousness starting to go.
“Are you going to black out?”
“ya know yeah, I think I… might.”

He led me to a massage table to lay down on my back then came up and pushed my knee in to my chest with a wink explaining in a whisper that it would look like I was stretching. Kind, but utterly unnecessary. It’ll take him a while to figure out who I am.

The next day I was WRECKED. See, I’d made the mistake of being honest enough about wanting to really focus on my abs. So I was sore in a way that left my range of motion only slightly more versitile than when my back popped out in ‘03. (It’s hell getting old.)

The next day was no better. But that was my next session.

“Lay down here on your back, feet together, legs straight out and… lift!”

Hrrrrr…flump.

“Ok, maybe you’re still too sore. Let’s try this…”

And so it went. As we parted he said “Now before you go, do a half hour on a cardio machine and do NOT crank it up” knowing full well what my impulse tends to be.

We scheduled our last session (it’ll be a while before I can actually afford training sessions on a regular schedule again) for Tuesday, tonight (though it may be last night by the time I hit post on this.)

Work today was nightmarish, leading me to finally declare “alright. I’m going to sit here and grind through this until it’s done.” I cancelled tonight’s training session, claiming that I’d go eventually on my own. I felt my demons crawling around in my head, whispering sweet inertias.

Of course I left work long before my claimed prediction of 8 or 9. It was 5:30 when three emails had gone unanswered, leaving me at a road block, when I finally departed in an huff.

I came back here, did some dishes, made dinner (ghetto burritos, yu[mk]), sat in front of the computer and began to calcify for the evening.

I kept looking at the damn clock in the corner of my screen until finally, at 9:15, I called the number for NYSC.

“Excuse me, what time do you close?”
“10:00.”
“Great, thanks.”

On with the new gym shorts, settled on a plain white t-shirt, (I know, I know) laced up my kicks and headed out.

I ended up getting in 2.3 miles on a half hour treadmill run, leaving the gym at 9:58. Nothing special about the distance/speed achievement.

But at least I didn’t bitch out on my run.

mope