Ramblings

There are 171 posts filed in Ramblings (this is page 14 of 18).

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Good workouts

I’ve been having some particularly good workouts lately. Here are some of the contributing factors:

  • Routine – I’m up at 7 and in bed at midnight every day; I work out around 5, so I’m good and ready for my workouts
  • Food – I’ve been eating three good meals a day for several weeks now; I feel more energetic and strong
  • Sleep – this may sound redundant, but I’m consistently getting about 7 hours’ sleep; I think that’s just what I need for a long day
  • No Spotter – In general, I think it’s a good idea to use a spotter, but when I don’t have one, I’m forced to work harder and do better reps because I don’t have a spot to bail me out if I get lazy
  • Warmup – Back at school, I tried to warm up before working out, but I couldn’t always do it; here, I can always shoot hoops for 20 minutes to a half hour before my workouts and that gives me more energy and helps build my endurance and overall strength

Hopefully, my workouts will continue to be productive for a while. It’s been too long since I was in good shape and I’m ready to get back to it.

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All cleaned up

It’s finally happened. I’m finally settled into my apartment. The only odd-ball thing that remains is my old, busted-up computer desk and that’s slowly being dismantled and shipped off to the junkyard. I’ve got everything set up as I want it and my place actually feels like a home.

Back to the grind

I’m not super excited about returning to work tomorrow, but I do feel like I had adequate time to relax and regroup this weekend. I guess some weekends feel too short–usually, this happens when I’m busy all weekend and never have a chance to stop and enjoy it–but this one felt about right. It doesn’t hurt knowing that tomorrow I’ll have a project waiting for me that I’m enjoying. There are still parts of my job that I don’t particularly enjoy, but that’s part of life and I’m very comfortable with taking the bad with the good.

Finally, a win

Christian Drejer has defected and our team has been given the daunting task of finishing the season well enough to secure a spot in the Tourney. As I watched our game at Ole Miss on Saturday, I immediately saw a flash of something special. The score see-sawed throughout the first half, but, as I spoke to a good friend during half time, I knew the second half wouldn’t be a contest. I was confident that we’d keep our turnovers down and end up winning by 10 to 15 points. In fact, the final score was 81-66, Gators. That seems about right.

It’s still evident that we have trouble defending the paint and I’m really not sure what we can do about it except to move faster and play better help defense. It doesn’t seem like we’re playing the wrong defense, or that we’re incapable of playing the right defense, but that we’re simply not executing quickly enough to stop faster teams who attack the basket inside. Hopefully, Billy D. will figure something out over the next few games. I think our guys are doing a great job of hustling for loose balls, creating turnovers and selecting high-percentage shots. Our offense is strong and can out score any team in the country if our defense will just pick it up a bit. I think we just need to move faster to disrupt passing lanes and help the perimeter defenders when they’re beat off the dribble. That means a lot of switching and hustling to the weak spot on the floor. Our guys are capable of it and it looks like they’re starting to realize the importance of consistent, aggressive defense. I just hope they’re ready come March.

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Ah, sweet couch-naps!

That means the furniture’s here and I’ve already had an incredible nap on the couch. I can only hope future naps are as great as today’s.

The Prelude

Of course, a good nap is best when preceded by much busyness. I played ball this morning for only the second time since I moved here. I played much better than the previous time, but I still have a lot of work to do. I haven’t gotten my shooting rhythm back yet, and I need to work on my court vision. Overall, I was pleased with my progress and I’m looking forward to playing again next Saturday.

I also helped a friend move an armoire from his cousin’s house to his apartment. It wasn’t nearly as difficult as we thought it would be and I enjoyed eating lunch and hangin’ out a bit with my buddy and his wife. It’s nice to have friends with whom I can spend the occasional Saturday afternoon. I mean, I like my apartment and all that, but friendship is irreplaceable.

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Blogging on location

…and by “on location”, I mean from my little office where I’ve finally set up my computer desk. It’s about time too, ’cause I was gettin’ sick of my previous setup. At first, I enjoyed being able to watch TV and then, on a whim, turn to my right and check my e-mail. After a while, I got tired of constantly having the glare of the computer screen shining on me while I channel surfed. It was almost like my computer was a conspicuous voyeur, monitoring my TV viewing habits, constantly asking Whatcha’ watchin’?. Of course, I realize that’s exactly what TiVo’s doing, but at least TiVo doesn’t have a big, bright screen constantly reminding me it’s there.

Special Delivery

After over five weeks of patiently waiting, my couch and loveseat will arrive tomorrow. As I cleaned out my living room this evening, I realized I’d been living as though my apartment were a hotel room and I was on vacation for a week: stuff everywhere, no organization, little true comfort and a continuously unfulfilled hankerin’ to clean stuff. After they drop the plushness off, I’m declaring an official naptime on my new couch. I’ve been dyin’ to take a nap on a big, soft couch since I got here and there’s nothin’ more frustrating than having to go get in bed for a simple little nap.

I’m tired of babbling and I know I’ll be bored out of my mind when I read this later, so I’ll end the misery now.

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Windy?

Today was particularly windy and I’m beginning to think I might be in for much different weather than I was used to in Florida. Obviously, I expected things would be a little different here–colder winters, slightly hotter summers, less humidity, hail, funny grass that’s only green in the summer–but I didn’t expect things like several inches of snow, then a couple warm days, then a super windy day. In Florida, I could expect about the same thing all the time: heat, humidity and frequent thunder storms. I guess I’ll just add the weather to my list of things to get used to.

Out with the fellas

We had our first official guys’ night tonight and it was pretty fun. We basically just went out and got half-price appetizers and watched the Georgia Tech vs. Maryland basketball game. One of us is a GaTech alum, so it was good to see GaTech win. I used to know what it was like to see a men’s basketball team win, but that was before our only senior got suspended and our transfer from Denmark transferred to Barcelona. I’m afraid we’re gonna’ be a 10-seed if we’re in the Tourney at all… I’m not hoping for a Final Four appearance or anything, I just want us to make it out of the first weekend. But before we can do that, we gotta’ make it into the first weekend.

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El Segundo on hold for a bit

Well, we had a meeting at work today wherein it became obvious that I should hold off on going to CA for training. Basically, it’s just not a good time for me to leave my responsibilities here and it’s an even worse time to try and get people to spend one-on-one time training me out there. We’re gonna’ try it again in a couple weeks.

Actually enjoying work?

I’m actually enjoying one of the projects I’ve been working on. I never expected to hate or really dislike work, but I also never expected to enjoy it. This work thing is turnin’ out to be all right. Don’t get me wrong, I still don’t think I’ll be an engineer “long term”, but I’m content with this profession for now. I work for a good company, on a good program and with good people; I don’t think there are too many other things I could ask for.

Computer desk

My computer desk arrived today… it was in two large boxes and weighs 300 pounds. It’s a good sized desk, but it’s smaller than one would think, given its weight. I’m kinda’ enjoying buying decent furniture rather than the cheap, “made for college kids” stuff I bought back at school. I have to say I’m not particularly enjoying assembling it, but I guess that’s just part of the deal. I hope to have it all done by Saturday when my couch and loveseat will finally arrive.

Guys’ night

Tomorrow night will be my first official guys’ night since I’ve arrived in Texas. Two of my friends–the two guys I roomed with on Project and then co-opped with the following summer–and I are going to watch the Georgia Tech vs. Maryland game and get a bite to eat or something. It should be a good time and I’m looking forward to going out and hangin’ with the boys.

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Real World quote of the week

“You are misinterprettating the situation…” – Brad

Quickly comin’ together

Turns out my computer desk will be here tomorrow, so that means my apartment will essentially be settled and furnished by this weekend. That’s just in time for me to ship out to El Segundo for a week. Ah, sweet irony.

Is there some sort of lame weblog award? I think I could win that. Speaking of winning…

Gators droppin’ the ball

So, we had another basketball game tonight and things seem to be getting worse by the game. I’m pretty sure this is the worst season I’ve seen as a Gator. Tonight’s loss was to Georgia, who already had 10 losses to our 6 or 7. We managed to lose another decent lead by crummy play, careless passing and cruddy defense. It didn’t help that our only senior, Colas, and our best passer/assist leader were out for stupid reasons. Colas is apparently serving a 3-game, University imposed suspension for who knows what, while Christian Drejer is back in Gainesville contemplating playing pro ball in Europe. It looks like there’s an outside chance that we could miss the NCAA Tourney this year, although that’s extremely unlikely. I guess the upside is that we can’t really do much worse and, although we just broke our streak of 98 consecutive weeks in the polls, we have an opportunity to begin a new streak. Of course, the streak I’m interested in starting is a winning streak.

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Got ’em

I’ve got a few pictures online… Click the link on the left side that says “Some pictures from Dallas” to see them. They’re not spectacular, but I hope to add some decent pictures to give my friends and family back home an idea of how I’m living out here.

Enjoy. Or not.

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Super Sunday

I got a lot done today and now I’m payin’ for it. I haven’t been this tired in a while. I woke up at a decent hour this morning and decided to download and listen to the 3rd part of a 3-part series at a local church I recently visited. I had missed this installment, so I figured I’d go ahead and try to catch it. Then, I spent a good part of the day either on the phone or reformatting my computer (I’d been having serious issues when I tried to connect my camera to my PC). Then, some friends invited me to get dinner and then go to their church with them this evening. Turns out the church is about 45 minutes away and part of that 45 minutes is spent on a toll road… Anyway, I enjoyed dinner and their church was nice, although it’s not really what I’m looking for right now.

So that about sums up my day… I’ve got pictures online over at JoshDoody.com, but I can’t figure out how to let people look at them. I mean, I can link directly to each one, but I was hoping to be able to link to a directory or list of the pictures I have over there. I’m working on that and will hopefully have it figured out by tomorrow.