The Hangover Part Two

Well I have left the shire and headed to Sydney's inner west to catch up with some old work buddies from my time at Western Suburbs Leagues Club. This bunch of friends were the ones who helped me get my second liver transplant. 

Mobicity - My Big Mistake

Before I set out on this trip I tried to upgrade some tech. I bought a new laptop, webcam and wireless headset. I also wanted to buy a GPS and a new camera. I found a new phone that had GPS and an 8mp camera along with a host of other features that I wanted but I discovered even when you pay in advance and deal with what up until then I assumed was a reputable company things don't always go right. Let me tell you a little about the phone transaction.

Day 5 & 6

I find myself in "The Shire" visiting an old friend of my mothers who has lived here her entire life. She and I lost touch for a number of years and it was only as I was planning my mother's 90th birthday party that we began to reconnect.

Anzac Day

I set out on this journey on an extremely reverential day in Australia, namely Anzac Day. It is celebrated on 25 April every year where we take some time to think about those who have made the ultimate sacrifice for this country while serving in its armed forces. We think about those who have served, those who are serving and not only the fallen, but also the wounded and maimed along with those who were lucky enough to make it home alive. It is a day of mixed emotions where sadness and loss are mixed with happiness and euphoria.

Healthy Weight Part 2

Now I know I mentioned, in another post, what a porker I had become (148 kilos to be precise), but things have been looking up (or should I say down?) since then. Let me tell you a little about it.

When attending my Doctor for what ever reason late last year he, as is his want, checked my blood pressure and put me on some medication. I mean me .... on blood pressure tablets? .... I had become a pill popper. Now I don't even own a set of scales and it was then that he weighed me and told me the larger than life news about my weight. Big numbers don't usually frighten me, I mean you hear about the deficit on the news all the time and you must remember I had been married with a wife who used my credit card like Whitney Houston used cocaine. I had seen big scary numbers before.

But as "I raged against the dying of my youth" (to bastardize Dylan Thomas) I was not going to take this weight gain and pill popping lying down (even though lying down was probably part of the problem).

When I finished my research I started a diet in the second week of December 2011. Now starting a diet 2 weeks before Christmas may not seem like a smart thing to do, but I had made up my mind and if I didn't do it then I may have never got around to it. It was now or never. So here's what I did and here's what I learnt along the way. 

Firstly, I didn't set myself any crazy expectations. I said in my mind that I needed to commit to this and give myself a reasonable amount of time to achieve a meaningful outcome. I wanted to get below 105 kilos (about 230 pounds) and I gave myself 2 years to do it.

The Olsen Twins - And No I Don't Know Which One Is Which

Note: While shedding almost 45 kilos is a lot of weight (think of it like losing an Olsen twin. I thought that was unit of measurement we could all relate to). It was important not to do it to quickly or in a way that wasn't sustainable. 

Secondly, and this may sound crazy, I didn't buy any scales. The way I measured myself was not by how heavy I was but how many extra buckle holes I had to make on my belt.

Thirdly, I knew there would be break out days, I just had to manage them in way to minimise their impact.

Fourthly, I knew that some exercise would be involved.

Day 4 / 5 - Maitland

Well arrived in Maitland after sorting out my Telstra problems. My phone would not let me tether it to my laptop for internet access. My god imagine living in a a disconnected world. Found a guru at the store who had it working in a matter of minutes. Whoever said teenage boys spend too much time in front of their computers got that wrong. 

Golf - The Tragedy

Well this post will be down and dirty. I had to make more room in the car and the golf clubs had to go. So one thing less will be crossed off the bucket list.

Day Three - On The Road

Well I finally get to leave Muswellbrook but not in the direction I was intending. First I had to do lunch at the Linga Longa Inn in Gundy. Well I didn't need to have another drink so I stuck to the espresso machine and the ice water dispenser. A sad indication of my encroaching middle age. 

Day Two - The Hangover

I awoke this morning to the soothing melody of leaves rustling in the wind. Only it didn't have that relaxing autumnal sound, it was more like a tribe of angry Scotsmen tuning bagpipes in my head. I slowly came to the conclusion that I had drunk way to much.

Day One - Attempting Some Music

Its my first day off away from work and what a weight has been lifted, although I'm sure I'll still get a few phone calls. 

I am off to a town at the base of the Barrington Tops. Its a gorgeous part of the world only blighted, ever so slightly, by being the most recent hideout of Malcom Naden (one of Australia's more infamous criminals). 

Ode To My Kindle

Kindle, Kindle; made in the U.S.
Sent in to the wild, no more printing press
Fight Genesis fruit with bright jungle fire
While feeling the wrath of all hard copy's ire
Smiting the robots, in a world without borders
How I love my Kindle; bring on new world order.

A MODERN MAN by George Carlin - from "When Will Jesus Bring The Pork Chops"

I’m a modern man, digital and smoke-free; a man for the millennium.

A diversified, multicultural, post-modern deconstructionist; politically, anatomically and ecologically incorrect.

I've been uplinked and downloaded, I’ve been inputted and outsourced. I know the upside of downsizing, I know the downside of upgrading.

Scoring Life

It seems that you can no longer just live your life, you now have to keep score. I always thought the best way to do that was by using the maxim ..... "Whoever dies with the most toys wins". The trouble with doing that is of course you have to first die to get the score, you'll never know what it is and some other bastard may end up beating you, which kind of makes the concept a little irrelevant. So I am going to invent another measurement tool to keep track of my meandering. See what you think of it.

The Journey Begins

Since arriving in Muswellbrook in early 2006 I have barely left the town. I have made a few fleeting visits to Sydney, have taken some time off for the purposes of personal study and had an all too brief 4 day trip to the Barrington Tops (no I didn't catch up with Australia's most wanted criminal Naden when I was there). My life had given me other complexities and a rare opportunity during those six years. Then in early February 2012 my own world was turned inside out, it was an incredibly sad and emotional time but it was also an opportunity for some renewal. So rather than dwell on the negatives, its a case of finding the positives, and that's what this trip is all about. 

Healthy Weight Part 1

In late 2011 my weight had reached a staggering 148 kilos (326 pounds). Now even for me that is humongous. I was so fat I was taller lying down than I was standing up. I decided it was time to act. So being the nerd that I am scoured the internet for websites that may be of use. I read articles, web pages and blogs and I soon discovered that the health, fitness and diet industry had a language all of its own. I needed to crack the code. So I started with some diet books that I heard about in the media including the ones by Pritikin, Atkins and that one that Kate Middleton used before she married Prince William by Dukan. Now all of these had some good information but they had their detractors as well.

WoW - Living in a Virtual World Part 1

Towards the last year of my marriage (in about 2005) I took my first steps into the massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) world namely World of Warcraft on the Silver Hand realm. In the process I became one of about then 5,000,000 players who were part of Blizzard's version of reality.

On Coming To Muswellbrook

In 1985 my parents decided to move away from our beautiful lake view home in Newcastle to a town I had barely even heard of called Merriwa. It was done for a good reason, my father who had a significant heart condition, had to move away from the coastal humidity to somewhere inland and more importantly a place with a drier climate.

The Story So Far

In 2006, not long after the end of my marriage, I moved to Muswellbrook from Sydney. There are 235 kilometers, a three and a half hour drive and a whole other world separating these locations. Sydney is a thriving metropolis with over 3,000,000 people. It has a rich history, thriving culture, many fine restaurants and is full of interesting and stimulating people.