Hoarding I

When I was cleaning my room a couple of weeks ago, I made decisions to throw out a few of the items.  This is one of those items: Sports-N-Stuff tickets.

Sports-N-Stuff is a place for kids and teenagers: they have sports, like a basketball court and batting cages, and stuff, like a video game room and laser tag.  I think my first visit was during the summer of 1991, when imy day camp made a visit.  If I’m wrong about that, then it was no later than 1993-1994.  Anyway, the place was awesome.  Video games and batting cages???  How cool was that?  Unfortunately, I didn’t get too many chances to visit because it was not easy to get to without a car.  I did make a couple of trips with friends when I did get a car, and those trips were fun as well.

These tickets are from the video games they had over there – some games, like skeeball, (or maybe it was all games) gave you tickets after you played them, and you can exchange the tickets for anything they had over there, which were mostly toys.  Of course, most people only get enough tickets for a plastic monkey or a pencil set, so those remote-control cars were just pipe dreams.

I must not have had the time to cash in the tickets one time and just kept them.  And after that, whenever I had to clean my room or was moving to another house, I kept these tickets.  It wasn’t that hard, since I kept them in a small pouch, and just threw it in with the rest of my crap.  I wasn’t going to go out of my way to cash them in, but if I happened to be driving by, I planned on making a stop.  Two little problems with that plan was that 1. I never drove by, and 2. tickets were in the back of my desk drawer so I probably wouldn’t even have remembered.

So finally, I decided to cut my losses.  After almost 15 years, I threw out the Sports-N-Stuff tickets.  I finally started thinking smart.  I had about 150 – 200 tickets here… what could I possibly get with that?  A mini pencil sharpener?  More crap to take up space?  It was not worth it.  I bagged it.

In case it isn’t clear, I am kind of a hoarder.  I am nowhere near the hoarder that those people on the show are, but I do like to keep things that hold value

, no matter how little it may be.  But I am learning to simplify my life, and learning to let go of these little things.  I threw out a couple of other items, and I will continue on “Hoarding II”.

Weekend Routine

My weekday routine doesn’t leave much room for extracurricular activities.  I’m out of bed by 7am, out of the house at 7:20am.  On the bus at 7:40am, and at work by 9:15am.  I leave work at 6:15pm, take the 6:22pm bus, and get home at about 8pm.  I do my workout until 9:30pm, and after a small meal and a quick shower, I’m in bed a little after 10pm.  From this point on, if I’m a good boy, I’ll go to sleep right away and hope for an early start the next day.  If I’m a bad boy, I will surf the Internet until midnight, killing valuable time.

Weekends, like most people, are less structured.  During weekdays, I long for the weekend’s arrival to get a lot of other things done.  But once the weekend comes, I waste so much time that I don’t get nearly as much as I want done.  I guess some of us need structure to get things done, and I certainly am one of them.

One of the structured things in my life is this blog, which I update on the bus during the morning commute.  It’s like clockwork – I get on the bus, grab a seat, and start typing with my thumbs on a small Droid keyboard.  Weekends, I can pick any time of day I want to start writing a blog.  So… twice now, I’ve delayed writing a post until I fell asleep and/or forgot about it.  Yesterday was one of those days.  I really do try to write every day, but I guess part of that motivation is gone after missing one day.  Going to keep trying, though.

One thing I learned from this is that maybe smoking will be like that, too.  After today, I would have completed 30 days without smoking.  But if I have just one, that 30 days will be reset, and I won’t be as motivated to not smoke.  Enough about smoking.

P90X update:  I decided to skip 2 days and move straight on to Week 5 routine.  I didn’t skip much, just one Kenpo session and one Yoga session.  Oh, and I also doubled up on Friday, doing Kenpo and Strech back-t0-back.  Wasn’t that hard, since Stretch is exactly that, stretching.  Back to doing 50 different variations of push ups.  Funny, someone got to my site by searching “Does P93X work?”  Umm… there’s no such thing, but it is interesting that my site is #1 on Google if you type that in.  I wonder how that happened…

Psychological Desire

January 28th.  I’ve completed 27 days without a cigarette.  Another 22 hours would make it 4 full weeks.  First few days weren’t easy, and I expected that.  What I didn’t expect was that things would get harder almost a month into it.

I’ve read online that the nicotine addiction is small potatoes compared to the psychological addiction, and I think that’s 100% right in my case.  My motivation at the start of this quit was not only to stop smoking, but to prove to myself that I can stop.  Did I prove it yet?  Will it take the rest of my life to prove it?  My motivation is waning and that may be the work of the smoker in me.  For the past week, I’ve been rationalizing, one cigarette doesn’t cause much harm, just like eating one healthy meal or doing one exercise session does much good.  I’ve already shown I can quit, so why not enjoy the cigarette once in a while???

Well, I’ve resisted the temptation so far, but I don’t know how much longer I can hold on.  In fact, I don’t even consider it a temptation, but rather just another option.  I miss the pull of the smoke into my lungs.  Wow, writing that sentence just made it easier to not smoke, but it’s true, I miss that feeling.  I would have a cigarette, but I’m afraid I would like it too much.  I want it to be disgusting.  It is like breaking up with a hot girl because she’s not a wife material, and after marriage, you think about her once in a while.  It would be much easier to forget about her if you saw her again and she gained 50 pounds.  Likewise, I miss smoking and want to try it once, but I want it to be disgusting, so that I can forget about it forever.

When quitting smoking, mental mindset is everything.  If I can’t stay focused and motivated, I won’t succeed.  If I think like, “I’m sure I’m gonna have a cigarette someday”, well that’s definitely a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I hope someday, smoking will truly be disgusting.  After only 27 days, I don’t think that day is here yet.  So I will continue to hold out, here on Day 28.  How high will that number go?

Snow Stories

Last night, we had our weekly winter snowstorm.  Timing of the storms have been great, however.  Two weeks ago, snowstorm fell on Wednesday, when my wife was off from work.  We tested for her pregnancy at home that day.  Last week, she was off on Tuesday, and that’s when we had the icy/wintry mix weather.  On that day, we went to our first prenatal visit.  Both days, I had to use a PTO (Paid Time Off), but they were scheduled off days for her.

Last night was, again, was a scheduled day off for my wife and again, the timing was great, so that she doesn’t have to drive in the snow.  For me, however, it is a different story.  As expected, my work did not close.  I could take another PTO, but I already used two this month and I need to save some for the baby, so I toughed it out.  I also have a deadline to meet tomorrow so I was determined to get to work.

I left the house a little before 7 to find myself snowed in, and barricaded by a 3-foot high, 3-foot wide wall of snow, plowed there by street plowers.  I was undeterred, as I started shoveling a path for me to walk through.  My original plan was to clear off the snow from my wife’s car in the driveway, but I realized I wouldn’t have time for that.  I shoveled myself to the barricade, and cleared some height off the wall so that I can step over it.  I did step over, but not before some snow got in my shoes.  Good thing I brought extra socks.

That was the easy part.  Now, I had to actually dig my car out of the snow, most of which involved dismantling and removing the 3-by-3 barricade.  This took a good 20 – 30 minutes because the snow was packed in tight, and also becase of my bad back.  When I was almost done, a mini plower helped a little by plowing away the edges.  Thanks, but it could have been a lot more helpful if you came 15 minutes sooner.  But the plow couldn’t really come close to my car, so I still had more snow to shovel, reaching under to clear the snow by the wheels.  I then had to remove the snow on top of my car, which led to more snow in my shoes.

Once that was done, I pulled my car out of the parking spot.  It took a little back and forth action to coax the spinning tires to grip, but I pulled out.  I actually had to pull out blind because I didn’t clear the side of my car.  Once I pulled it out, I cleared the remaining snow off the car, and it was off to the bus stop.  Will there be spots?

Roads were plowed, but not completely – there was still an inch or two of snow, so I had to drive real slow and carefully.  I arrived at the parking lot and luckily, not too many people were going to work today so there was a decent number of available spots.  I couldn’t see the blue lines separating the spots, so I actually scraped off some ice to make sure I was only taking up one spot.  This was done just in case I end up staying overnight at the office.

Walking to the bus stop from here was not easy either, as the pedestrian walkway hadn’t been cleared.  I managed to step in other people’s footprints (or footholes) and walked along the shoulder of my town’s main thoroughfare.  I saw a bus to NY go by two minutes before I got to the bus stop.  But that doesn’t matter to me, I thought, I’m going to Jersey City.  I arrived at the bus stop and checked njtransit.com to find that…

My bus was suspended.  No buses were going to my office.  This would really be a perfect reason to not go to work, but that was not an option.  I waited for the NY bus.  For 35 minutes.  Others waiting for the bus with me were talking about how it may not be running, but njtransit.com didn’t say that, so I was going to wait.  And it finally came.

Almost 9:30 now and I’m still 30 minutes away from NY.  When I get there, I will have to transfer to another bus to get back to NJ, and then take the light rail to my office.  Unless that bus is still suspended, in which case I would have to walk to Penn Station and take the PATH train.  I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I can’t wait to get to the office.

Brush with Fame

The other day, I bought a bus ticket from a Port Authority vending machine.  When I reached into the bin to fish out the ticket and the receipt, I found a second receipt.  The person who used this machine before me was… Jennifer Lopez.  I was two minutes late from meeting her… buying a bus ticket to New Jersey.  Who knew?  I guess she takes public transportation.

Of course, that isn’t really her.  And even if I did meet her, I wouldn’t tell anyone about it.  Well, I may write about it here, and I would tell my wife, but that’s about it.  That goes for most of the celebrities, not just Jennifer Lopez.  I wouldn’t tell anyone because I don’t want to be the type of person that gets excited over seeing someone famous.  But truthfully, I am that type of person.  If I saw Tom Hanks getting into his limo in New York, that would be pretty interesting.  I would want to share this interesting thing that happened in my life.  But I don’t want my life to get more interesting just because I saw someone who has no idea I exist.  And as much as I would like to say, “hey, guess who I saw in New York?”, I envision myself saying that, and I don’t like it.  I guess it’s a pride thing.

However, if I saw someone who wasn’t all that famous, someone who is known by a certain group of fans, I would say hello.  Someone like a local underground musician.  In my case, it would be comedians.  I would approach comedians who have not yet hit big time.  Comedians performing in local clubs, comedians on the road, comedians who’ve been on Comedy Central.  But once that comedian goes into acting, that’s probably where I draw the line.

Bottom line is, I don’t want my encounter with a celebrity to be a one-way street.  I want to approach someone who would appreciate the attention.  That’s also where pride comes in – I don’t want to acknowledge you unless you are going to appreciate the acknowledgement.fa

P93X

My 7-Day Week for P90X went from Saturday to Friday, with Friday being the rest day.  However, due to the ski trip, I fell a day behind on Saturday.  And when I got home on Sunday, I was too tired to do it, so I fell two days behind.  And yesterday, I just plainly felt lazy and hungry, so I ended up not doing it either.

This is dangerous.  I have to make sure I complete this program, even if I have to turn it into P93X.  If it becomes P21X, I don’t think it would be effective.  I must continue today.

I’ve really been sacraficing a lot of time to this so far.  No time to do comedy, no time to study.  People say this is a lifestyle change but I don’t think I can devote an hour a day for the rest of my life to exercise.  Maybe if I lived closer to work, I can spare 30 minutes…

On a side note, I’m kind of glad that the Jets didn’t make it to the Super Bowl.  Now I’m not obligated to watch it, and New York wouldn’t be as crowded if I go there on Superbowl Sunday.   Sorry, Jets fans.

Duties as a Son-In-Law

Planned a weekend getaway trip to a ski resort.  Even rented a minivan so that the in-law’s family of four and us two can comfortably get to our destination.  I was looking for resort all over Pennsylvania that wasn’t too far away, and also had rooms right on the slopes itself.  Seems like most ski resorts offer rooms that were condos being rented out by owners, most of which required a drive to ski.  Luckily, I found a decent suite at a nice resort.  Because that is what I must do as a son-in-law.

Got to the resort at around 12:30 pm on Saturday afternoon.  As expected, the room wasn’t quite ready.  Seems like this place sells out every weekend.  Since I wasn’t planning on skiing, I figured I would at least do some tubing.  But I had to wait for the room to be ready, so we just sent my 12-year-old nephew off, and I waited in the lobby.  Because that is what I must do as a son-in-law.

My in-laws brought a portable cooking thing and grilled up some salmon.  I made sure to note prior to the trip the hotel’s policy about no grilling, so this got me worried.  Smoke was not visible, but it made me cough and it certainly smelled.  Without throwing blame around, although my unhappiness may have been detected, I covered up the smoke alarm and covered under the door leading to the next room.  Because that is what I must do as a son-in-law.

After dinner, all of us except my father-in-law decided to use the outdoor hot tub.  I always wanted to try going in the outdoor hot tub in freezing weather, so this was my shot.  Unfortunately, I forgot to bring my swimsuit.  I was reminded by my wife as we were packing but ultimately, I forgot.  I would have gone in with just my underwear, but I didn’t think that would be appropriate if there were other people in the tub.  So ultimately, my options were to either not use the hot tub, or wear my father-in-law’s swimsuit.  And if I had chosen the first option, it would have been obvious that it was because I didn’t want to wear his swimsuit.  Swimsuit that was still wet from his trip to the pool 3 hours prior.  Swimsuit that made extended contact with his junk 3 hours prior.  I just realized I would have felt a lot better about it if I wore the swimsuite over my underwear but I didn’t think of it.  So I put on a brave face, and put on my father-in-law’s wet, fresh from the pool swimsuit.  Because that is what I must do as a son-in-law.

Spreading the News

I can’t believe it has only been four days since we officially found out about the pregnancy.  And it has been hard to not tell everyone.  I’ve read many online articles and it seems that although some tell everyone as soon as they find out, others wait to tell until the end of the first trimester, when the riskiest period for miscarriage is over.  We’ve been doing a combination of both, a slow and controlled release of the information.

Well, I’m trying to make it sound like a grand scale public relations campaign, but the truth is we are telling our family right away, and our friends later.  She is now about 8 weeks into her pregnancy, so we told my family and her family.  and about 4 weeks later, when she will almost be done with her first trimester, we’ll let everyone else know, like friends and co-workers.  But since her siblings and my siblings are all on Facebook, we have to tell them not to mention it on our Facebook pages – I guess that’s where the control comes in.

It will be tough not telling friends for another four weeks.  But we want to play it safe, and not get too excited.

Quitting Forever

Today is Friday, January 21.  This means I have completed 20 days of not smoking.  Today would make it a full 3 weeks.

But what kind of smoker will I be?  What kind of smoker do I want to be?  The way I see it, there are five levels of smokers/non-smokers.  Although most non-smokers will only give you two levels: smokers and non-smokers, I believe there is a difference amongst smokers.  The five levels are:

I. Non-smokers/ex-smokers: they will not smoke even one cigarette for the rest of their lives

II. Blue Moon Smokers: they will smoke maybe a few times per year.  They don’t crave it, they just go with the flow if others also smoke

III. Social Smokers: they always smoke when they drink, and only when they drink

IV. Regular Smokers: they smoke by themselves and buy their own cigarettes

V. Chain Smokers: they smoke pretty much non-stop and can’t go more than half an hour without a drag.

I used to be a solid IV.  I smoked about 2 packs a week.  I don’t know how some people smoke that same amount in a day.  Anyway, I now ask myself, where do I want to be?  Level I, and never touch another cigarette for the rest of my life?  Can I do that?  I don’t think I can fight the craving for the rest of my life.  Well, I guess I can, but I don’t want to.  Key is to remove the craving.  I think most ex-smokers say that after a while, smoking becomes gross to them, just as if they were always non-smokers.  Yeah, I can see myself feeling that way.  I can see myself holding my breath when walking by a smoker.  But will I ever forget how good it tasted?  Will I never crave that taste, that feeling of slight lighted-headedness again?  I’m still a relatively new ex-smoker at 3 weeks, but I don’t think so.  I need to stay off cigarette for a bit longer, say months or maybe even a year or two, and have a cigarette again.  Hopefully, that cigarette will be disgusting and I will wonder how I smoked that for so long.  But the risk is that it will taste just as good as it once did, and it may even get me to smoke again.

I know I don’t want to be a Level III smoker either, and I’ve already gone drinking twice without smoking.  So my only other option is Level II.  Essentially, this would be for when I get decently drunk (not falling down drunk, just slightly drunker than feeling good drunk) with other smokers.  At this level, I would still enjoy an occasional cigarette every so often.  And would that be all that bad?  Risk of having cigarettes at this frequency is not health-related, but addiction-related, as in, it could lead to one becoming a regular smoker.

Fighting the craving isn’t that bad.  There have been moments where I wanted one, but those moments weren’t that tough.  But if I am going to be fighting the rest of my life, maybe an occasional relief couldn’t hurt, as long as it doesn’t suck me backn in to the world of regular smokers.  Or maybe I will really stick to this and quit 100%.  I don’t know.  But I know one thing for certain, I am not spending another penny for cigarettes.

Mistiming Sleep

Sleep has always been an issue for me.  I think one of the hardest jobs my mom had was waking me up every morning for school.  In college, I missed my fair share of 8:10 am classes.  For my first job out of college, I woke up literally the last possible second I could, going from bed to the car within minutes.

But I guess even a lazy bum like me can grow up because somehow, I wake myself up now, and on time (mostly).  I also developed a habit of always taking a shower before leaving the house.  (I even showered the day I overslept for the actuarial exam last November – I remember thing “what am I doing?  I am late for my exam, I should not be in the shower right now.”)

However, this does not mean I’ve conquered sleep, because my sleeping pattern still leaves a lot to be desired.  First problem is that I routinely fall asleep at 1 am, and wake up at 7:10 am.  With that only being 6 hours (sometimes I get less than 6 hours), I make up for it by sleeping on the bus, and sometimes I find myself really sleepy at work.

Yesterday, I was determined to hit the sack early.  I got home at 8 pm, and did P90X until 9:30 pm.  I took a shower and got ready for bed, landing my butt on the mattress by 10 pm.  No dinner, as eating could delay my sleep.  Couldn’t completely break old habits though, as I surfed the Internet until 10:30.  From 10:30 to 2 am, I could not sleep.  It was torture.  Well, it wasn’t really torture, but I was getting really annoyed.  I could have watched “Titanic” in the time I was trying to fall asleep.  I got sick of trying to keep my eyes closed, and I was also hungry, so I gave up, eating some bean sprout soup with rice, and then an ice cream.  I ended up falling asleep at 3:30, and luckily, I got myself up at 6:30.  I really wanted to wake up by 5 because I have a lot of work to do, but 6:30 is still earlier than my usual wake up time, so it wasn’t all bad.

I know, I know, I break several rules of getting a good night’s sleep.  I don’t go to sleep at the same time every night, as I sleep later on weekends.  I stare at a screen right before bed.  But I think I’ll first work on changing my sleep cycle.  I will try again tonight.

I hate the act of trying to fall asleep, though.  Such a waste of time…