There’s too much bullshit going about in the fitness industry. The ones at the top of this fugurative food chain are making the most money: publishers, writers, doctors, name it. When I was younger I was skinnier than Barry Oh is now, partly because I was a sickly kid who suffered for months from minor… Continue reading this entry

It’s June and my spring cleaning is far from over. Aside from having given away the clothes I can no longer fit into (I beefed up a lot since January), and throwing away crap that I know I will never use (say, a 250-watt computer power supply), I have a few other things to get… Continue reading this entry

Well, I turn twenty-eight on Tuesday and I took off for a long weekend. I won’t be back to work until Wednesday. I’m really not going anywhere far. Logistic and financial shortcomings have prevented me from spending even a night away from my home, but I think I would really, really enjoy the time off.

Is this medium called blogging something that I have somewhat outgrown? I’ve been giving it a lot of thought lately and I have been prone to writing mini-treatises instead of your typical blog posts. I won’t even try to explain why I write the way I do; suffice to say that in this medium, at… Continue reading this entry

When a valued friend of mine from years ago told me that I will never be the same after I work a particular job, I believed him. The fundamentals of our identities are fixed harder than what most jobs can change about us, but every job that we do, every step that we take in… Continue reading this entry

I drive from Glen Burnie, MD to College Park, MD everyday in the morning coming from the gym. That’s 6 miles on 695 and 22 miles on 95 going south. I have flown down that route before at 70 to 75 mph and have burned a quarter tank of gas in one round trip doing… Continue reading this entry

I started my new job this past Monday in College Park, Maryland. No longer do I work at the cadaver lab, which I barely mentioned for a multitude of purposes. One thing I realized in switching jobs is that there is a vast difference in outcomes when a person is cast in the wrong—or right—role… Continue reading this entry

Like the title said. Heath Ledger bought the farm. Fred Thompson is out of the presidential race. Clinton and Obama squabbling like, well, whatever. Someone tell Billy Joel he needs to rewrite We Didn’t Start The Fire to include this year. I think I’m going to curl up in bed, have some tea and read… Continue reading this entry

My personal possessions tend to fall under one of three categories: the utilitarian, the reserve, and the totemic. Utilitarian sounds simple enough: these are the things that I use on a daily basis, until they get run down and battered and they stop working. When that time comes, the reserve come into play. I find… Continue reading this entry

Every gym has its own culture, and I’m pretty glad the place I joined isn’t full of meatheads at all. It wasn’t crowded at all but even where there was a small cluster around a few particular machines everyone was courteous enough to offer turns and what not. Joining here appears to be one of… Continue reading this entry

After much hemming, hawing and self-doubt I did some financial math and decided to join Gold’s. About damn time. Toured the facility, liked what I saw, it has all the machines I need, yadda, yadda. Things are looking up. Or out, like in the following picture: The view from the swaying bridge at Patapsco Valley… Continue reading this entry

I have mentioned briefly before on my site that I now own a car. The significance of that can be a underplayed without the context that this is my first car and that I arrived at the moment that I’ve been waiting for last September, and on my mother’s birthday, no less. In less than… Continue reading this entry

I consider myself a very sociable guy, by most standards. This can be at odds with my general tendency to stay home unless I’m really, really feeling like meeting up with people and having a good time. I spend a lot of time with my friends, but sometimes I will go out to parties and… Continue reading this entry

For at least two years I’ve been in a trench war with smoking. I’d be without for a few months, “something” would “happen” and I’d pick up the habit, and then I’d fight it again for quite a bit… Wash, rinse, repeat. Come to think of it, this vicious cycle might be worse for my… Continue reading this entry

Five weeks in a nutshell: September 29 I got me a car. October 12 I got me a license. 1300 miles later I’m dusting off my blog for a sec to say I’m having a hell of a time away from the computer.

The concept of a career evades me these days. It’s weird. One of the biggest challenges I face when I get into a new job is that I learn my tasks so quickly that I get bored with what I do. Right now I am in a job where I know I won’t be staying… Continue reading this entry

I’ve reached a point nowadays where people have begun to ask me what I do because I am noticeably slimmer. And while I try not to get into too much detail—since I already know that people react to the cold, hard facts differently—I don’t hide what I do either. “I wake up at four-thirty in… Continue reading this entry

There really isn’t much I’m allowed to talk about when it comes to work. I can’t talk about the donors who have given their bodies over to science, since not only would that violate the employment agreement I signed, but it’s also not a decent thing to do. I can say that the pace here… Continue reading this entry