Health Stuff

So, I had my first checkup in a while yesterday. Everything was OK, although the doc said a couple of things which are making me look at my overall health and diet.

I'm going to try making the following changes:
1. adding a general vitamin pill daily
2. exercise more and stretch every day
3. correct my posture - no more rounded shoulders
4. more milk

One little comment from the doc was what it took. And he said that it was very minor - not needing treatment. This makes me think I can correct it by treating my body better.

I can do this. I used to do #2 and #4 all the time. #3 I just need to have mirrors around so I can see how lousy I look with the rounded shoulders and I'll fix that on my own. #1 will be the tough one.

Avatars

Self 2.0: Internet Users Put a Best Face ForwardSome meet, date and even marry solely online -- without ever expecting to meet their mate in person.

I guess that's where teledildonics comes in.

Cramped for Space? Try the Taj Mahal

I was just looking through the Washington Post's front page, and they linked to this article about the new houses people are building.

Mansions for Commoners.

While I would like a little more space than my 850 feet for two people, for one its plenty. And if the second person isn't a roommate, it works perfectly well. Well, aside from the small kitchen, but, it doesn't need to be all that large.

Granted, I prefer the city life to being way out in the 'burbs. That's me. But, even if it was right in the city, what do you do with 25,000 square feet of housing space? Not that long ago, that amount of space meant that you were extremely rich & had to entertain; you had servants. Now its "everyone" except that then you have to do all the labor parts yourself. One person said that it took an entire weekend to clean the house. Yes, that's how I want to spend my weekends: cleaning.

Many in my family have "larger" homes. They are nice homes. In the 3-4K square foot range (I think). I don't like them. They are too big for me. On the other hand, seeing a family of 4 living in a 1 bedroom apartment on the Upper East Side is a bit too cramped. I figure for my comfort realm, I need 500-750 sq ft per adult, and 250 sq ft per kid, so even a large family, with 3-4 kids would seem about right in a 2000-2500 sq foot house.

I grew up in a, to me, average pre-war house. 3 BR, 1.5 BA, half semi-finished basement, decent kitchen, living room, and dining room. None of my friends had anything substantially larger. Maybe my parents felt cramped. I didn't, for all 15 years I lived there. The house we moved to after that always seemed a bit too large. 4BR, 2.5 BA, unfinished basement, LR, DR, kitchen, den, family room. What happened was that we had rooms we didn't use. In particular, the living room.

I think what's going on is that as we get into bigger houses, we don't LIVE in more of them, we just COLLECT stuff in more of them.

Nooooooooo!

Beep. It's from Hamlet. 2B? NT2B?=??? - Yahoo! News

Say goodbye to literature.

Top Commander Denounces Call for Iraq Withdrawal Deadline

A timeline is a bad idea when it ties to specific dates.

Why on earth aren't people calling for when specific RESULTS have been made?

For example, when Iraq has been peaceful for N days - no car bombings, no suicide bombers, we will withdraw X. The key to this is to back it up. When it has met that requirement, we will need to actually leave.

There is no timeframe for something like this, but there is a PLAN for withdrawal.

Sometimes dates don't make sense.

Too Pretty A Picture

An opinion in today's wash post made me think.

I've experienced sexual harrassment at a low level: guys standing too close, staring at my chest, etc. at work. Guys making sexual comments about me that I really did not appreciate, particularly since the guys had at least a nominal position of authority over me. I was never in a position where I did not have a remedy. I moved out of jobs where I worked with the assholes. Although I did take a paycut.

Tying in with the other articles recently about women and jobs and education, I wonder if we're going to go back to this being the prevailing attitude: "Women can't do X because no women do. Therefore, men have every right to terrorize women into leaving job that performs X". Women with educations leave the workforce, therefore women who are less well-prepared are the only ones in the workforce. These women are less well-prepared so are less likely to be qualified for positions or to execute those upper positions as well [just as a factor of preparation, not innate ability].

This is a multi-fold problem. The men who heap abuse on women. The women who "accept" the abuse by not fighting back. The women who opt out of careers after they've started them for families. The men who don't opt out of careers after they've started them for families. [Yes, this should be a choice, but its very difficult to make the choice when the choice is not available to be one, so we need more people to make the non-stereotypical choice until its clearly available for everyone].

Maybe it would take a completely over-the-top version of this to bring home to most of current U.S. what really happens sometimes. Sexual harrassment is usually brushed over, its a "Clarence Thomas" type of harrassment, a couple comments, an offensive magazine / calendar. Its not a groping, pervasive, life-threatening hell.

I wish I knew.

Stranger in an Empty Land

I just returned from the scouting trip to Rhode Island.

When I last lived in NE, I was in college. So, the fact that there wasn't much going on beyond the college didn't bother me - I was part of the college.

Now, outside of the college(s), there isn't anything to do, really, besides go to the mall (nice mall, has lots of shops, movie theatre, etc). We were bored with the "city" after 5 hours, and decided to go to Boston. When we went through various towns that seemed like reasonable compromises between where I'll likely get a job and where DH is working, we were very underwhelmed. As in, there were a total of 10 stores, including gas stations, in those towns. With the one exception of a neighborhood under revitalization... we didn't realize it at first but discovered that the reason for the revitalization was that the maximum security prison was just across the highway from it.

*sigh*


I do have pictures of DH in a Sox cap though.

First drunk bears, now drunk elk... what's next?

BBC NEWS | Europe | Sozzled elks hound old folks home

So, bears go for high quality beer. Elk go for "spiced" apples. I wonder what other animals drink. All pets I've been around have been resolutely opposed to alcoholic beverages.

More job stuff

Applied to a few more jobs last night. I got another company interested, but, they will have me doing exactly what I am doing right now. Which is not what I want to be doing. Plus it'll be for less money. Not fun.

Talking Startups

Well, I finally had a phone interview with the startup guys. I'm now getting rather interested. These are two guys who have already done one startup (successfully, it grew/flipped). They have lots of contacts in the area they're looking at. They aren't just out of college (40ish). They have some VC money, and more coming. Location sucks, since the commute would suck, but, I can probably be negotiable on that. I mean, its really a 45 minute drive without traffic. I just need to determine when that 'without traffic' is. And do a lot of work from home.

That and I'd be CTO. That's what I *want* to do.

But I'd still like to get some bites from other companies as well.