Embarrassment

This happened a few weeks ago at the office:

I came out of the men's bathroom and started walking back to my desk when I suddenly realized that my fly was unzipped. I thought about just zipping it up as I walked along, but I didn't want anyone to stand up or look my way and see what I was doing.

So I pivoted and started to zip up my fly ... only to realize that I was now facing the door of the women's restroom and a woman was coming out of the restroom.

Sheesh.

Nothing's come of it, but then again I've avoided her as much as possible.

Whoops, I did it again

Just been too busy with work and working out to do much posting. But I'm on it.

The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single pedal

Today's weight: 262 pounds. Or 265, if you want to go by the scale at the health club.

I signed up for a health club. Not going to name names here unless they want to pay me for advertising, but I gotta say it's convenient for me, and not just because it's a five-minute drive from the headquarters of Insanely Wobbling Visions. (Wednesday night, I plan to find out how long it takes to walk there.)

This particular health club was having a sale of $50 for five personal training sessions, and while the training sessions are only half-an-hour long, that's still quite a deal from the normal three sessions at $50 an hour deal. So I said "what the heck" and decided to go for it. (Uhhh -- my mother only thinks I'd be wasting money like this, so don't tell her I did this, OK?)

Tonight's session was less rock and more talk as the trainer decided he wanted to find out more about me and what I'm looking for. We discussed my health (not completely sucky, but going downhill, which makes it kind of like Seattle), my diet (which is completely sucky) and my goals (which don't suck). I have some very definite goals, and I'll put them in a post later this week. I'll tell you right now that a lot of those are endurance-oriented, and the trainer's background in running and triathlons and all that other fun stuff mesh pretty well with what I want to do. Enough so that I agreed to postpone the second visit until he gets back from vacation in a week and a half.

Until then, I did 20 minutes on a recumbent bicycle machine tonight. Didn't really break that much of a sweat, but I did get my heart rate up there. I'll be on that bicycle -- or the one next to it -- every other day between now and the time he comes back.

Not that I'm going to stop there. Right now on my breaks at work, I'm walking twice around the block, which fills that time up nicely. And if I get a chance to walk the Discovery Park loop trail this weekend, I'm going to do it. With the leaves starting to turn color, this is a great time of year for that.

So my journey begins. I've got to start somewhere, and this modest ride is it. As to where I want to end up ... well, I have mountains that I literally want to climb.

Oh, about the title

Since my original choice was taken, I had to make a quick decision on my title. And I came up with a line from an incredibly obscure novel. How obscure is it? Well, I just checked on Wikipedia and it doesn't even have an ISBN number. Now that's obscure.

I will buy a steak dinner (or the vegetarian equivalent thereof, if so desired) for whoever guesses the novel that it came from. Maybe if I get some readers for this thing, I'll actually start dropping hints and you can go on your own Dan Brown-style hunt for the book.

Right now, I'll just say that it's an espionage novel from the 1960s with a very unexotic locale and a very twisty plot. The author has a wicked sense of humor which I love. Is it a classic? No. Will it be remembered more than anything by more serious authors? No. But I enjoyed reading it nearly 30 years ago and I'm still hanging on to my copy for more than just a three-word phrase.

Yeah. So I'm a procrastinator.

Whoops. Been nearly a year.

But I've decided I'm going to dust this thing off and use it. For right now, this blog is going to be primarily about my efforts to get into shape, but I'm in no way going to limit to just that. I'll be about other subjects that interest me, from the theater to the stadium, from the White House to city hall, from great cosmic matters to things I see just walking around everyday.

So enjoy it. Or don't.