One of those days…

So we’ll get back to the back-posts soon enough.  Trust me there’s more to catch you up on.

At any rate, things have been going well.  I finished the bet and did well will the weight loss – 25 lbs in 4 months.  I want to lose another 13-15 lbs and these are going to be the really hard ones as I get closer and closer to the goal.

I've been running at the indoor track at Bally’s lately and been feeling pretty good about how I’ve been doing.  My speed has been good and my distance has also been good.  Or has it….

Come to find out the track at Bally’s isn’t exactly an eighth mile track.  Apparently it’s a ninth mile track.  So I’ve been miscounting my laps by one for every “mile” I thought I ran.  That means my stellar 7:45/mile 2 mile run is only an 8:44/mile for 1.78 miles, and the 3 mile run is merely a 9:30/mile run for 2.67 miles.  And my beyond excitement single mile at 6:44 today?  Simply a 7:34/mile pace for 0.89 miles.

Now granted, those are still pretty good times all things considered, but when you think you do a lot better, it’s a bit of a let down.

Oh and that mile I did today?  I was trying to change things up and really push it on a single mile and go back to a longer distance tomorrow or Thursday.  Yeah… not the best idea.  I might have pushed the legs a bit too hard.  We’ll see tomorrow.

Leaving the gym I left to go to Trader Joe’s to pick up some of the Greek yogurt that Dani turned me on to.  It’s quite good, even plain.  I like it with cinnamon.  Well I get to Trader’s at 9:05 only to find out they close at 9:00.

Finally, I got my new laptop today at work and it ended up having a faulty touch screen.  There was a dead zone about an inch square in the upper right corner.  Now I have to wait two days for the repair depot shipping box to arrive, ship it back, wait another 5 days or so for them to repair it and then a few more days for it to come back.

So yeah… it’s been one of those days.

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The Bet: After

So I realized I never said if I won or lost in my last post.  As it turned out, I “lost”.  I use quotes because I lost the bet, but I also lost 25 lbs, so I really can’t be too upset.  As I told Dani, $100 is the cheapest personal trainer for 4 months of training ever.

So these are initial after pictures.  I’ll post more as I get them.  I’m hoping I’ll have some good candid shots from events over the rest of the summer (and as I continue losing more weight).

First off, on MSN they had an article about how betting on losing weight makes you more likely to succeed.  So go all-in on your health.

And now, the after pictures and more notes.

 

Now this picture shows two shots of me.  Me on the left in red is now.  On the right is a totally different “before” picture.  Dani sent me this picture that she took back in 2005 when we first met.  From my calculations I was about 186 when we met and this picture was motivation to get back to that size. 

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The Bet: The Story and Before Pictures

We interrupt the backlog of posts to bring you some current news.
So, some of you are aware that I’ve been in a weight loss bet with my friend Dani.  Dani has been going to the gym and doing kickboxing since last November and has really enjoyed it.  At about March, after losing about 10 lbs, she made me an offer I just couldn’t refuse.  She said that she needed some motivation to keep going further along than the 10 lbs, and she figured I needed motivation to finally get it in gear and get to the gym.  What resulted for a series of conversations around that topic was that

1. We were going to have a joint birthday party with a Toga theme
2. We were going to have a weight loss bet to May 1 (the day of our party) to lose 15 lbs each.

To speed through some of the story, we ended up having the party mid-April and we changed the terms (balanced the weight loss goals between me and Dani – about 1 lb a week for her and 2 lbs for me) of the bet and extended it through July 1.

On March 1, I weighed in at 213.  That pretty much is the high point of weight for me since I started keeping track back in 2004.  The lowest recorded weight I have was 181 on April 10, 2004.  One final weight reference point is that when I met Dani in March 2005, I was close to 186.

Additional measurements I take are waist, stomach and chest.  On 2/22/2010, right before the bet, I was 39, 42 and 40.5 inches respectively.

I will now take a cue from Dani’s recent posts (before, after) at this point show some of the least flattering pictures of me I can find.  Tomorrow I’ll post some after photos.

My 30th Birthday Party (March, 2009)

Missa Gaia Trip with Glee Club (October 2009)

 

AXP Thanksgiving (November 2009)

Fraternity Composite Photo (December 2009)

Horribly unflattering “before” picture #1 (April 2009)

Horribly unflattering “before” picture #2 (April 2009)

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Ninja and NYC

In honor of Judd’s recent birthday, it’s now time to make good on a promise I made back in May of 2008 to fully detail the exploits of the Judd’s NYC Graduation Celebration Extravaganza.  And now, the rest of the story.

 

The occasion was to celebrate Judd’s college graduation.  After many years of fits and starts Judd had finally succeeded in attaining his bachelor’s degree and felt we should celebrate in style.

 

The weekend began on Thursday night when I had Judd over for dinner.  The plan was for him to stay over so we could leave at our leisure the next day directly from Worcester.

 

On Friday we took off a bit after noon and drove down to NYC.  We got to the hotel, the Affinia Dumont,  just before dinner and checked in.  The hotel was great.  It was a suite with two double beds and a pull-out couch.  There was an initial misunderstanding with the room as Judd had booked a suite with an additional separate king size bed, but we seemed to have a different room when we arrived.  It turns out that we had the additional bed, but it was that he had booked the adjoining room, so we had to go in the door next door and then open the locked shared door.

 

That evening Judd and I had dinner at the restaurant attached to the hotel, the Barking Dog, while we waited for the rest of the crew to arrive. Pretty ok for a basic meal, but nothing special.

 

Once everyone arrived we headed out in search of a karaoke bar.  We ended up at Sing Sing Karaoke.  We proceeded to cram 8 of us in a 6 person private room and then sang our heads off all night.  Don’t worry, we kept our throats well hydrated with a number of rounds of drinks.  I think I should have realized it was time to cut things off when at one point, rather than leave the room to get the next round myself, I simply handed my AmEx to Cate to buy the next round with.  The damage wasn’t that bad. :)

 

On Saturday, after plenty of water and sleeping late, we headed out to walk around the town, see 5th Avenue and go to various shops and stores.  In other words, be tourists.

 

That evening we went to Ninja restaurant.  Ninja was incredible!  It was a combination of theatre, fine cuisine, excellent service and great atmosphere. We ate in the Ninja Castle portion of the restaurant.  Words really can’t do it justice so I’d recommend looking at the website and then visiting yourself.  I’m looking forward to going back there someday.

 

Sunday morning we had a quintessential staple of NYC, the Sunday brunch.  We found a nice little restaurant and enjoyed various confections, pastries, breads and savory treats.

 

Well fed we headed out to see the Museum of Sex.  If you’ve never been, it’s worth going at least once.  It’s interesting to see how sex and all things sex related have changed over the years.

 

On Sunday night we went out to see Rent, which was in it’s final season.  It originally was supposed to have closed June 1, 2008, so we were getting to see it in the final weeks.  Given the incredible demand because it was closing they ended up extending the run through to September 7, 2008.  Our tickets were phenomenal – Center Orchestra, Row A (which is the 3rd row from the stage).  It was a great performance and the second time I had seen Rent on Broadway.

 

Later that evening some went out to Greenwich Village for a blues club, and others just hung around.

 

Finally, Monday morning rolled around and we packed up the cars and headed home.  Overall, an incredible weekend.

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Always a groomsman?

It’s not so much that I’m always in a wedding as simply that I’ve had so many of them over the years.

I just recently returned from a trip to Florida to actually officiate a wedding (more to come in a later post) and I got to thinking about just how many weddings I’ve attended or been in over the years.

My calendar really only goes back to 2003 so we’ll start there, although there were a handful of weddings during college and immediately afterwards (most notably both my parents)

• 2003 – 2 Weddings
• 2004 – 4 Weddings
• 2005 – 3 Weddings – Wedding party and sang in one of them.
• 2006 – 4 Weddings – Two were on the same day.  Sang in one of them.
• 2007 – 4 Weddings – Wedding party in three of them, two were travel weddings, sang in one of them, and there was a 5th wedding that I couldn’t attend because it was the same day as one of the four I went to.
• 2008 – 5 Weddings – Groomsman in one of them
• 2009 – 3 Weddings – Day of Coordinator in one of them, Travel for two of them
• 2010 – 1 Wedding (so far) – Officiant and travel for the one.

Statistics:

• 26 weddings in 8 years
• An average of 3.25 per year
• Groomsman/Usher: 5 times
• Singing: 2 times
• Air travel: 3 times
• Closest location: Worcester, MA
• Farthest location: Fayetteville, Texas

Now the amusing thing is that I mention this to friends of mine and they comment that they have similar numbers or possibly a few less, but they don’t realize until I point it out to them that they have as many weddings as a couple as I do single.

We’ll see if this year stays at 1 or if I’ll get another one soon.  I don’t think I have anyone else getting married soon, so we’ll see.

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On Next Week’s Episode

So in order to provide some interest in future posts (and to help give me an idea of what to write about) I’m going to give you kind of an index of the coming posts.  If you see that I’m missing anything that you think I should write about, feel free to leave a comment.

 

• Always a groomsman?
• Ninja and NYC
• VOX Cabaret 2009
• My 30th Birthday Party
• London Travels
• Trip to DC
• VOX’s production of South Pacific
• A Weekend in NYC with Pace
• Vacationing in Cali
• Florida Wedding Trip
• Matt Doyle in Concert in NYC
• Memorial Day in Vermont

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On Last Week’s Episode…

Hmm… a bit dusty…

let’s clean this…  and move that…  change this…

Ahh… much better.

 

Well apparently this little corner of space is still around. :)

 

It’s been almost a year since I posted and even before that it was fairly sparse for updates.  I’m going to try to remedy that situation going forward.  My plan is to recap the major events of the last year or so and post a new story at least once a week until I get back to present day.

 

Also, to start over a bit, I’ve updated the look of the site.  I hope you like it.

 

Finally, here’s a recap of my most “recent” posts:

• Summer 2008 – Trip to Worcester England to perform WitchWife: Requiem for Susanna Martin
• September 2008 – VOX’s performance of The Threepenny Opera
• October – November 2008 – The presidential election and Proposition 8
• Winter 2008 – Off to see Were the World Mine
• Spring 2008 – Had a minor car accident and purchased new couches for the condo

 

Until next time…

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Where am I?

Where am I? Where have I been? Well it's been a bit busy towards the end of the year. If you want to get a more in the moment view of what's going on I've joined the Twitter craze and you can find me at http://www.twitter.com/ShadeTC. Lata!

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New England Weather

It is beautiful and sunny out, the high is going to be 58 degrees, I have all my windows open and shades up to enjoy this preview of spring and what is it gonna do tomorrow?  Snow.

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.  I mean I’ve spent my entire life in New England.  I should know that the saying “If you don’t like the weather… wait a minute.” is more than just an funny saying, but I just REALLY want springtime.

Anyways, off to cleaning :)

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Down the slopes

So the only good thing about the almost 14 inches of snow that was dumped on Worcester just two days after a glorious 60 degree sunny day was I got to take another trip down the slopes at Wachusett Mountain.  At this point my season pass is more than paid for so I’m happy.  The amusing thing was how this all ended up happening.

Today Anthony im’d me to see if I was up for skiing, to which I replied I was.  By the time work was over and it was time to head out, I was feeling less up for it.  I was tired and I was a bit in the zone for work so I wanted to try to get work done.  I was contemplating cancelling on him but ended up deciding against it because then he’d be heading out on his own and I didn’t want to do that to him.

Turns out towards the end of the day he developed a headache and found he really wasn’t in the mood for skiing but decided to press on so as not to cancel the plans with me.

In the end we both went skiing so as not to upset the other, even though neither of us was really all that into it at that point.  We did have fun though once we got to the mountain and didn’t realize that the other had considered cancelling until we were heading up the lift for our last run.  We also decided to be greedy and try for a spot close to the mountain (they were full back to lot 9 or 10 I think).  The first pass came up empty through lot 5 but we decided to push our luck and headed all the way up to lot 3 the second time around and ended up pulling around just as someone pulled out.  Ahh… Greed is good. :)

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