Snowed-In in Seattle (Sort-Of)

My office and much of downtown Seattle resembles a ghost town today. The school districts are all closed and many offices have closed-up due to a bit of snow and the related traffic nastiness. Seattle is quite hilly, and there has traditionally been maybe one or two snow plows for all of the surrounding county...when it snows a few inches here closures like this occur. I get all puffed with pride when this happens...it took several feet of snow to get a snow-day in Anchorage. I do have sympathy for the northern Seattle burbs, as they tend to get more snow than Seattle-proper (snow that sticks, that is)...

While contemplating snow days and anwering email messages I discovered this hilarious Onion bit. Perhaps I find it hilarious because it reminds me of me, or of who I don't want to be. So, I have blogged it for your amusement, consideration, identification, etc.:

I Was Placed On This Earth To Put Off Doing Something Extraordinary

Operation: Love-Handle Obliteration

So, I have been moderately overweight for several years, probably at least since 1999, when I quit smoking one pack of tobacco cigarettes per day...this was also when I began to notice my fondness for sitting at the Buckaroo Tavern, Ileen's Sports Bar (replaced by Julia's on Broadway c. 2001, r.i.p.), etc., rolling through two or three pints/shots/cocktails, on average, with essentially no aerobic exercise. Indeed, I have probably not done much of anything close to regular aerobic exercise since my distant high school days (LWHS Class of '91).

I have had two cholesterol tests in twelve months. My total cholesterol is now above 280, alas. At age 33 I currently clock in at 182 lbs., so yeah, I am still moderately overweight, and I can no longer use the quitting-smoking story as an excuse for my 20 lb. friend that circles my belt-line.

So, I am going to run my ass off at 24 Hour Fitness for a while (my employer has a corporate membership there) and use FitDay to track my calorie intake. It is humbling to see how much goes in and how little I burn relative to it. All of this stuff is a bit of a shock: keeping a journal of my every movement, from walking up the stairs at my house to a cup of decaf that I make in the afternoon to a morning walk to my office from Jackson AVE S, will take some getting-used-to. It's cool, though...I look forward to my goal of 170 lbs. by May 1, 2007. We'll see if I can make it.

In totally unrelated news: I have not yet taken a photo of my Day of the Dead altar...a couple housemates of mine couldn't wait to eat the little chocolate skull that accompanied it, so the photo will lack said skull. I will remember to take a picture of the altar tonight. Also, I have been remiss in posting a couple last batches of wedding photos: I will get on that tonight as well. I hope that the weather is nice where you are, dear reader. The 98101 ZIP code is overcast and rain-soaked today...I don't mind it so much. It gives me an excuse to wear wool.

Con sincero,
jmht

P.S. Thanks for the comments!

Hello from a while ago...

I will make no excuses for not having posted in a while...true, I've been busy with conference calls and email-jockeying at CRAB, with music mixing for The Preons and songwriting with Sun Vow, but I haven't forgotten about you, blog audience! I will work to make my musings less frequent, ever-more scintillating and random as always.

Summer 2006 was a happy blur, with the wedding and honeymoon dominating much of it. Autumn has been pleasant enough...Kirsten and I have been feeling the urge to stay indoors, out of the wind and dampness of the past few weeks.

This time of year, every year, I get nostalgic for my Anchorage childhood, and particularly for the snow...by "the snow" I mean snow in my front and backyard, all over the street, everywhere. Many friends and acquaintances will give me a crazy look when I state that I miss such precipitation. I don't know how to describe it exactly...I enjoy the quietness that I remember, in my little cul-de-sac East Anchorage neighborhood, when the streets were covered in snow, sometimes three feet of it. I miss the way that such weather would slow people down...I even miss freezing my nose off in -20F weather in downtown Anchorage, standing with my mom at the Fur Rendezvous parade. I've been away from all of this stuff for eighteen years now, and yet I can't help but miss it, especially around the holidays.

I came to hate this time of year after my mom died in '88, basically because I missed her. With eighteen years between me and her death I guess I've come to hate this season less...on that tangent: I have decided to celebrate El Dia de los Muertos for the first time this year, to honor my late mother, Nereida. Day of the Dead is gaining more notoriety each year, or it seems to gain notoriety in Seattle, anyway...like a good computer geek I have looked up a wiki on how one might keep this holiday, heh. The first time I heard about this holiday was in seventh-grade Spanish class...indeed, we watched a filmstrip on Mexican history that featured a long segment on El Dia de los Muertos at the end. I marvelled at the sugar skulls, the little dioramas of skeleton mariachi bands, the colors of the displays...all of it looked great to me. I liked the ideas of celebrating life and death, of seeing death as a necessary component of life, as opposed to an inevitable flaw to suffer. I still like these ideas...so, I decided: What the hell? I will keep Day of the Dead this year. My altar and ofrenda will be modest: a copied photo of Nereida, a chocolate skull that Kirsten brought back from a recent trip to Chicago, a candle in a candelabra that a friend in San Antonio bought us for Christmas three years ago...maybe I'll post a picture of it for you, pageant audience, up on my Flickr page.

I have to get back to work, but I hope this little note finds you all well. Happy Day of the Dead to you!

Con sincero,
JMHT