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Every 15-20 lbs or so I need to retool some aspect of my diet.  Around 265 I noted my lunches were a bit large so I transitioned to getting soup from the cafeteria and using fresh fruit and granola bars to round out the meal.   My granola bar of choice is FiberOne Chocolate which has seriously upped the fiber in my diet at the cost of me farting like a champ.  This upped fart frequency coupled with the fact that my farts now sound like a duck call has led me to stop conversations, walk over to the fume hood, make a strange face, and returned with my pressure equilibrated.

This went on for a week or two until my boss called me into his office.

Boss: Terry.
Me: Yes?
Boss: You’ve been farting up a storm.
Me: I know, that’s why I’ve taken to the fume hood.
Boss: And we thank you for that.  But that hood contains hydrogen sulfide test equipment [H2S is the primary odorant in flatus, the fancy term for gas].
Me: It’s a sealed system.
Boss: But if it gets in and messes up readings, how do we log it?
Me: …human input error.
Boss:  Good, as long as we have a plan.

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So there’s a guy living in my house. He’s from the Internet. He’s moved from the Internet to my house temporarily. He will then move from my house to another place. This other place is close enough to be “Philadelphia” and not The Internet.  He doesn’t have a car.  Which makes sense, the Internet doesn’t give you a car.  He has a computer.  Which makes sense, the Internet is on computers.

So there’s a guy from the Internet living at my house.

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Dad: Your weight loss has come along well, what are you down to?
Me: About 260.  I have another 50 or so pounds to go.
Dad: Then what?
Me: I’ll probably get an abdomenoplasty to get rid of the extra skin.
Dad: I’ll pay for it.
Me: It’ll probably cost around $7000.
Dad: I’l pay for half of it.
Me: Deal.

 

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One a month I try to make something totally new for my coworkers.  Today, I made peanut butter sriracha cookies that were met with mixed results.  Some people liked them, some people didn’t and I saw an obvious divide that none of my other coworkers did:

Coworker: Some people seem to really like your cookies.
Me: Yeah.
Coworker: But not everyone.  Farhad, Venkatesh, and Priya really liked your cookies, but Carl, Everett, and I didn’t.  Strange.
Me: No, not in the least.
Coworker: Really?
Me: You can find no commonality between the three that liked it versus. the three that didn’t?
Coworker: They’re all in marketing?

Yep, that’s it.  The fact that most of the likers from from the Indian subcontinent was completely secondary.

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“To set it to projector output mode on that laptop model just hit Function and F4 twice”.  And with those words uttered in a marketing meeting my secret was out.  I, Terry Robinson, know how computers work.  Over the course of the next six hours I was asked to set up a dual monitor display, set up a back-up to an external drive, an, show someone how to return the taskbar in Windows XP from the side back to the bottom.  Normally, this revelation would annoy me as it just means a categorical increase in the amount of work I have to do but I’ve fine with this.  This work is for marketing, and they pay me much per hour than R&D.

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I can do about 150 sit-ups in good form, I can do about 40 modified push-ups or 10 proper push-ups in good form.  I can do no pull-ups, yet.  I felt between my weight loss and my gains in upper body strength I should be getting close.  So, I went up to the attic, and attempted to do a pull-up.  Nope.  But I could hang, which I could do before but for not nearly as long.  Brachiation was now possible, meaning I could move forward by swinging with my hands.  This wasn’t the smooth motion of a kid on a set of monkey bars but more looked like someone recovering from a spinal injury.  I’ll get there.  I went to go back down to my bed room but before I did, I hung from the rafters a little bit more and smiled.  Those are the moments where I hope there are aliens spying on humanity just so I can confuse the shit out of them.

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I am member, no, a high priest, of the cult of Under Amour underwear.  Under Armour won my single elimination Greatest Underwear 2007 tournament and I feel I can speak expertly on the O-line vs. the T-line of Under Armour underwear.  For the record, M (for mesh) -line 6″ boxer jock underwear is an undergarment worthy of being put into a time capsule or etched into a gold record to be launched into space.  The mesh in fine enough that you don’t feel the spaces but you get ridiculously fast drying.  You could shart in these and be bone dry after about 15 minutes,.  Mind you, you’d smell like poop, but you’d be dry.

Five of my friends have been lulled into the cult as acolytes and today I converted a sixth.  I started out with 3XL pairs and now wear XL but kept the 3XL ones for reasons I’m not quite sure of.  I sold them to this new member today at $10 a pair.  Please note, I sold used underwear.  This is something I could only do with Under Armour underwear.  The proof of the pudding is in the eating, but I believe he’l be happy when he receives them.

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I find road trips hard to write about. Sometimes I want to be thorough which is boring, sometimes I want to be brief which is a disservice to those I see. I’ve been told by those I’ve traveled with that they enjoy my after the fact retelling and what I found interesting but I find this trying. Whenever there’s a long break from me writing, it coincides with a trip. My most writing streak stuttered in the run up to this trip which, in retrospect, has proven to be another hammer blow in the annealing of my character. This isn’t to imply that the trip was a bad one, but it was a case where I learned something. Usually I learn things but this was a systemic change to how I viewed the world and those moments are rare and precious.  People are rich and deep and should be ends and not means if they are at all important to you.  The ones we love sometimes follow different paths than us but with effort this will result in perspective rather than alienation.

The four of us had a nice lunch before Suzie and I left in the early afternoon.  I dropped Suzie off around 6 despite my best efforts to get there earlier and I drove back to PA listening to the Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.  Another 1500 miles on my car and another Monday where I will be running on fumes.  If this be the price of friendship, I pay it gladly.

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I’ve only known Peter and Audrey for less than three years but it feels longer.  I’ve only known Suzie for 18 months but it feels longer.  Tonight, the four of us had dinner at Deca, the restaurant for the Ritz-Carlton in Chicago.  It felt like we’d done this a dozen times before despite this being our first. The food and company were delicious.

From 2012-02-18, 19 Chicago

I like French food, and would probably enjoy it more were it not so pricey but this evening was a treat. Peter covered dinner for Suzie and I in exchange for a pair of SSDs I had conjured up for him to put in he and his wife’s MacBooks.

After dinner, I had fun with my new Apollo softbox that I still have no idea how to use but taking pictures of attractive people certainly reduces the amount of work I need to make someone look good to around 0.

Here’s Audrey

From 2012-02-18, 19 Chicago

And Suzie

From 2012-02-18, 19 Chicago

One thing I learned immediately is that I’m terrible at giving directions to people that are simply modeling and not showing an action. At work, I sometimes take pictures of people showcasing test methods and I can spout off commands of where to stand how to hold one’s arms and such but for just taking someone’s picture I’m clueless. Maybe that’s where my love of candids comes from, I don’t need to do anything besides wait and I can prove to be very patient. I made a few other mistakes like not pulling the piano bench further from the window. While the cityscape behind is nicely en-bokeh-ed, the horizontal bar of the window is hideous and takes away from the shot. I should have had a reflector on the other side as you want a one or two stop difference not four of five.

After pictures, I met two of Peter and Audrey’s male friends and took to them quickly. They are philosophy majors at the University of Chicago and that’s a topic I enjoy. We discussed qualia, underdetermination, and empirical sufficiency and I was having a ball. The guests and I embraced at the end of the evening and shortly after their departure Peter began laughing. One of the guests had texted Peter asking if I were gay and available and I was terribly flattered. The other was also interested and I politely declined. Audrey replied with “how do you know? You haven’t even tried”. This event tickled me for two reasons:

1) For once the boys were interested in me, not Suzie
2) I get to cross “get hit on” off my “Reasons I don’t want to be fat” list. This wasn’t how I had thought it’d happen, but I wasn’t specific.