iPod, Therefore I Sweat


EXERCISE: Bought myself an iPod to help keep me motivated while I'm working out. Was so excited that I couldn't WAIT to get to the gym after work. Increased my time on the bike by 50%. Loved it.

FOOD: Lunch was at a chinese buffet: wonton soup, beef and broccoli, some sesame chicken, a scoop of rice and two mini veggie egg rolls.

Dinner was two grilled chicken breasts a la George Foreman, and a baked potato. Too tired to put a salad together.

That's alot of food, and I know it. But, trust me, I haven't eaten this sensibly in YEARS.

TMI MOMENT: I know I'm a fag and all, but I think my b.o. smells kinda good...

Not Exactly a WorkOut, But Certainly Hard Work

Spent from 10am until 6:30pm Saturday trapsing through car lots in dealership after dealership, looking for just the right truck. Baked in 90 degree weather under the Texas sun, and test drove about 10 different vehicles. Walking? Indeedy-do. Then, when I found the truck of my dreams, I spent an hour cleaning out the cab of my old truck, preparing to turn it over as a trade-in. Add to that the emotional rollercoaster of haggling with salesmen, their sales managers, and finally a sonovabitch finance guy, and I was damn near dead by sundown.

What I'm saying here is: no trip to the gym, but still lots of activity.

AND, a brand new, 2007 F-150 supercab truck with a V-8, 18 inch chrome rims, chrome grill, and chrome running boards, power-package and SWEET two-tone paint job ("dark stone" and "pueblo gold") now sits in my parking spot. 0% financing. Don't hate.

FOOD: a roast beef and cheese sub at 3pm at the dealership and two tostadas and a Burrito Supreme at about 8pm. Drank water all day but knocked back a Diet Coke at dinner. Not great, I know.


Today will see me meeting with my bear buddies at a BBQ joint for lunch. I will focus on lean brisket and the vinegar-dressed slaw they offer. If I breakdown and sample some pork ribs I won't beat myself up. I love those things.

The gym bag is packed and ready for the trip to the gym after that. A little "quality time" with a stationary bike is in order.

Promise Of A New Day


Happy Birthday to my blog! YAY! It was one year ago today that I began this little journal-thingie.

Okay, enough of this. Things have changed. Life has changed. I have changed. I WANT to change, and I want this blog to change along with me.

Today begins a re-purposed blog. The blog will now be strictly about the journey that I take as I try to become healthier and more fit. Just the facts, ma'am. I have re-joined the YMCA, I have made a committment to work out with friends at their house, I have begun to watch more closely what I put in my mouth (foodwise, smartass!).

Today, I had a DanActive for breakfast, a seafood plate at lunch. I am headed to the Y as soon as I'm off work to pedal on a stationary bike and walk a bit on a treadmill. Dinner will be a salmon fillet, a baked potato (butter only), and a salad.

I'm scared of looking like a total puss when I collapse at the gym, but I'll deal with that fear. I know my heart and lungs are strong, which is a comfort.

It's Friday night. Hope you are gonna have some fun. Here comes the weekend!

Sunday Mop Up 04/22/07

So, I'm all ready to close up shop here, take the shingle down, and call it quits. I listed the reasons here, and I feel good about my reasoning. I make the big announcement, and prepare for Life After Blogging.

Then, I get feedback. Leave it to someone just casually stumbling across my posted announcement, a person I have never heard from before, to not only blow holes in my alibi for quitting, but making a suggestion that hits me in the face like a 2x4. Thank you, Pissed Off Housewife. You humble me. And I accept your advice and your dare.

Starting on April 27th, this blog gets a serious facelift. The focus here will be my health and the challenge I face as I strive to get into some semblence of fitness. I will only post about my workouts, my caloric intake, and any results I gain from the hard work ahead. It aint gonna be pretty and, damn, I know it.

There will be no more commentary on current events, dumbass Youtube clips, or revelations about Life As A Hairy Homo. This blog will only serve as a way for me to be accountable to my committment to get healthier.

I suspect this will bore the living hell out of everyone, so don't be surprised if I disable the comments section so that I don't have to put up with any outside negativity about what I am doing. Besides, even positive comments could distract me. I'm easily distracted, you know.

By keeping the blog going, I will have a record of what I have, or have not, done. I will also have a portal to other blogs that interest me, which is important to me as well. If I am fucking off, I will be able to see it here. You will, too.

So, that's the plan, Stan. I'm as nervous as a whore in church about it. Maybe that's a good sign. I'm still making decisions about how this is all gonna look, but I'm cool with allowing it to develop in an organic fashion. I don't want to spend too much time on the details. Distractions, again.

The one thing I am sure of is that I don't want to continue dealing with the medical issues that I've been dealing with forever. I'm old now, and I'm not bouncing back as fast as I did when I was a kid. I know I'll never be a buff musclebear, but I sure don't want my diabetes and medical issues to take me down. I'm running out of time to get my shit together.

That I'll lose readers is a given. I honestly don't care (tho' I bet I still track you'se guys with StatCounter).

Whoa. Scary stuff.

Cool!

A Decision Is Re-Considered

I'll explain what I'm thinking tomorrow. Meanwhile:

A Decision Is Made

Screw Tuezdayz Cheeze, I've had heavier things on my mind as of late.

Here's the deal. I had been toying with the idea of closing down the blog for a few weeks now. Then, my fake heart attack happened - an incident where I not only convinced myself, but somehow managed to convince doctors in the ER as well, that I was having a coronary when - in fact- I had just become physically weakened from a previous injury.

Ummm...do I really need to be devoting time and energy sitting around blogging when I should be up, on my feet, off my ass, focusing on my health issues? Isn't there room in my life for both things? Look, I'm a fat guy who LOVES to sit at my pc and fuck around. I don't need the distraction. I need to move from obsessing about this silly blog, to obsessing about my flabby ass.

This last situation merely cemented in my mind what I need to do. Sure, I love playing around with this blog. I like writing. But, come on, I've got bigger fish to fry.

April 27th is the 1 year annniversay/birthday of this blog. It will also be the last day of it.

If anyone would like to continue to keep in touch, I would be honored to do so through email.

It's time for me to get serious about my life and my health and my weight. There's no time like the present.

Until then, I'll mark time by posting a few more things.

Thanks for visiting jimmycity, by the way.

Sunday Mop Up 04/15/07

Hi. It's me, Jim. I've been missing a while, and there is a reason. I'm going to explain it to you, but I have to tell you that I'm not very enthused about dredging through it all. But it is important to spit it out, because what has occurred in the past 10 days or so has a direct bearing on this blog and, if you are one of the handful of regulars who checks in on me here, I feel I owe you an explanation. So, here goes...

How I Spent Easter Weekend by jimmycity

My last post here was about having my wound vac removed. This was on Wednesday and was a very wonderful day for me. No more tubeage and hauling around a black purse that sucked on me continuously. Wednesday was a good day, indeed.

Thursday was an interesting day at work. My boss had decided to take Thursday and Friday off and have a long weekend. The man surely deserved it. He had been doing his job and parts of mine for weeks, as I recuperated from my leg injury. On Thursday, a few issues came up, and I tried to communicate with the Engineering group about resolving them. I wrote emails. I left voice messages. No one bothered to reply. This aggravated me, because I believe that if my boss had instigated the communication, people would have responded. Me, not so much.

Friday arrived and I emailed the people involved again in the morning. Nothing. I left phone messages after lunch. Not a peep. I was pretty angry now, and decided to find a live body and speak to them face to face. I jumped up from my desk at about 2pm, and marched to the other side of the building to find someone with whom to discuss the issue. Did I mention I was mad?

I walk briskly down the long main hall of the building, and as I am striding, I am formulating my choice of words that I intend to deliver to the first person I can corner. As I am walking, I notice that I am out of breath, and slow my brisk walk down quite drastically. I become lightheaded. I stop in the hall and stand with my back against the wall and gulp air in. I cannot catch my breath. Then, the pain hits. My chest begins to tighten up and I become dizzy.

Yes.

I turn on my heels and head back to my facility. I sit in a chair with my co-workers and they ask what is wrong. I tell them I need to go to the hospital. One of the video techs grabs my car keys and drives me to the Emergency Room.

At the Triage desk, they check my blood oxygen level. It's very low. They check my blood pressure: 190/105. They usher me to a chair and slap electrodes onto my chest and give me an EKG. An ER doctor compares this reading with a EKG taken just two months ago when I was last there. The two are very different.

"Mr. City, " the doctor tells me, "I think you have either had a heart attack recently, or are about to have a heart attack."

Cue the anxiety attack. I mean BIGtime. They put me on Xanex to calm me down.

I am checked into the cardiac ward of the hospital. They stuff an oxygen tube under my nose, put a nitroglycerine tab under my tongue and a big, gooey nitro patch onto my chest. They make me chew up a handful of aspirin. They hook up a heart monitor to me so they can watch what it is doing at all times. And they tell me to be patient, I was going to be there until they can run tests on me Monday. This was Friday. It's a holiday weekend, afterall.


See, I don't want to go through telling this all again. I've told every family member, and all my friends this story a billion times since last week, it seems. I could give you a blow-by-blow of what happened, but you already KNOW I don't die, cuz I'm telling you after the fact. But, trust me here, I didn't know if I was going to die back THEN.

My Dad flew in from Florida to be at my side. My friends dropped in all weekend. My family called me every hour of every day. I was scared out of my mind. I cried. You think I wouldn't freak out and cry? I fucking did, buddy.

The hospital staff treated me like I had advanced coronary disease. They had to; they didn't know otherwise. My blood was kept so thin that when they had to give me any kind of shot, I bruised and bled like a stuck pig. They intentionally lowered my blood pressure to around 90/50. It got as low as 85/30 at one point. If I accidentally knocked off an electrode to my heart monitor, my whole monitor would go dead, and staff would come running into my room, thinking that I had flat-lined. Think I was stressed out with all this going on?

I had anxiety attacks all weekend.



It was a long, awful weekend of waiting. My Dad and I got to do a lot of talking, and that was the one bright spot. My father, if you hadn't read before, is the greatest motherfucker God ever created. Fuck that Ghandi guy, he never could have handled my mother. I love my Dad so much I can get a little choked up just writing it. He was there for me, all weekend long. Man, we talked.

On Sunday, I had to watch a video about a heart catheter procedure they were going to do on me on Monday. This is that thing where they snake a catheter up your femoral artery in your groin and go up to your heart to inspect your coronary arteries and your heart. If they find a little blockage and plaque, they can do an angioplasty procedure, which is where they inflate the catheter like a balloon and press the garbage they find up against the artery walls. If they find blockage in a risky area, or find too much blockage, they pull the catheter out and an open heart, bypass procedure is scheduled. I had to sign paperwork stating that I understood I could have a heart attack during the procedure, or that I could stroke out during the procedure.

Cue another anxiety attack.
...anyways...

To make a long, ridiculous story a little shorter, I had the procedure. Not only did my heart look good, NO plaque of ANY KIND was found. Are you kidding me? I'm a fat guy who has lived on junk food all my life. I was SURE they would find a Chicken McNugget lodged in there somewhere. Nope.

Then, they tested my lungs. Afterall, I could have thrown a bloodclot, causing my shortness of breath. After much to-do, my lungs were fine. Clean and absorbing oxygen just dandily.

What the fuck happened to me on Friday, then?

The doctor explained it this way:

Since the first week of February I have had a drastic reduction in activity level. Hell, everyone was ordering me to keep off my feet and keep my leg elevated, right? Well, that shit had been going on for 8 weeks. Eight weeks of sitting around and taking it easy and sleeping to speed the healing of my wound caused me to become "de-conditioned". I had the wound vac removed on Wednesday, and on Friday I was charging down the hall at work, looking for a fistfight. My body was like "Exertion? Whatchoo talking about, Willis?" My heart wasn't used to pumping like that in a while, and my chest hurt from breathing so hard. No heart attack, buddy. Just extreme fatigue.

Oh my GOD, I felt like an idiot. I was convinced I was going to die, and it turns out that I had just morphed into a giant slug in two months. A giant slug with a perfectly good heart and set of lungs, mind you.Good, yet kind of weak right now.

And THAT'S how I spent Easter weekend. I hope yours was better.

I have more to say, but I'll save it for another post.

Free At Last!

Hi everyone, I just wanted to jump on and share the good news : I was officially detached from the wound vac this afternoon! Finally!

Now, there is still a fairly impressive gash on my leg that will continue, hopefully, to fill in over the next several weeks. Bandages will still abound. But my trips to the clinic will decline to once a week, and I will be dressing the wound and tending to it largely myself.

Turns out I wore that pump for six weeks. Six long, frustrating weeks.

My thanks to all of you who took the time to check in here and leave comments asking about my status, and thanks as well to the surprising number of people who emailed me directly with words of support and encouragement. I am doing the best I can to respond to any and all emails.

I'm gonna go now, because I have phone calls to make. Family and such. I'll check back in soon!

Love,

jim

Tuezdayz Cheeze
(I know it's only Romano, but I like it...)

And now for something COMPLETELY disgusting...



Keith Richards: 'I Snorted My Father'

LONDON — Keith Richards has acknowledged consuming a raft of illegal substances in his time, but this may top them all.
In comments published Tuesday, the 63-year-old Rolling Stones guitarist said he had snorted his father's ashes mixed with cocaine.

In this March 12, 2007, file photo, Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones appears in the press room of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony in New York. In comments published Tuesday, the 63-year-old Rolling Stones guitarist said he had snorted his father's ashes mixed with cocaine. (AP Photo/Stuart Ramson)
"The strangest thing I've tried to snort? My father. I snorted my father," Richards was quoted as saying by British music magazine NME.
"He was cremated and I couldn't resist grinding him up with a little bit of blow. My dad wouldn't have cared," he said. "... It went down pretty well, and I'm still alive."
Richards' father, Bert, died in 2002, at 84.
Richards, one of rock's legendary wild men, told the magazine that his survival was the result of luck, and advised young musicians against trying to emulate him.
"I did it because that was the way I did it. Now people think it's a way of life," he was quoted as saying.
"I've no pretensions about immortality," he added. "I'm the same as everyone ... just kind of lucky.
"I was No. 1 on the `who's likely to die' list for 10 years. I mean, I was really disappointed when I fell off the list," Richards said.

[Good grief!]

Sunday Mop Up 04/01/07

Remember how I tried to warn everyone last week that I was in a foul mood? Well, guess what?
Same deal this week, too, babies.


The Home Stretch

The wound care nurse who has her precious face in the hole in my leg every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday told me on Friday that this coming up week may see the last of the mechanical contraption that has been attached to my leg for over four weeks now. Has it only been four weeks? Holy SHIT, time drags the fuck ON and ON when you have a medical issue!

AND

I am considering ending my bloglife once I hit my 1 year anniversary. Turns out, I have very little to say. And, if you don't blog yourself, I think you'd be surprised at how much time and effort it takes to keep at it.

But, those aren't the real reasons I may decide to chuck it all. The real reasons have to do with my dissatisfaction with what I am choosing to deal (or NOT deal) with here. I am trying to be real and honest and spontaneous and in-yer-face, and I think I am failing. WAY too often, I am NOT writing about something that has surfaced in my world because it may offend someone who I care about, and who may be reading the blog. I think I screwed up by announcing to everyone I know in "the real world" that I was doing this, instead of just doing it, and letting COMPLETE strangers in on what is on my mind. No, jimmycity is an attention-whore. And jimmycity may have sabotaged his little project because of that character flaw.

And, by the way, being able to shit on everyone is not the only reason I am considering quitting. Another is that I don't think I am putting myself, honestly, onto the page. I can't quite commit to telling you what I am actually like, although I hint around about it. No, jimmycity is a people-pleaser. Fuck, I'm going to be dealing with THAT issue the rest of my life!


At this point, I don't know. I'll keep you posted. Have a good week. Mine is gonna suck (except for possibly shedding the mechanical vampire, that is).


ps. I told ya I was still in funk over here!