Look out knees, I've started jogging! Yes, this is just my first week.

I'm not sure where these came from, but they appeared in my email from a friend and I wanted to save them for future reference here. This made me laugh quite a bit, and I think all but a few seem to ring pretty true.

Random Thoughts of the Day:






• I wish Google Maps had an "Avoid Ghetto" routing option.
  
  
• More often than not, when someone is telling me a story all I can think about is that I can’t wait for them to finish so that I can tell my own story that’s not only better, but also more directly involves me.
  
  
• Nothing sucks more than that moment during an argument when you realize you're wrong.
  
  
• I don't understand the purpose of the line, "I don't need to drink to have fun." Great, no one does. But why start a fire with flint and sticks when they've invented the lighter?
  
  
• Have you ever been walking down the street and realized that you're going in the complete opposite direction of where you are supposed to be going? But instead of just turning a 180 and walking back in the direction from which you came, you have to first do something like check your watch or phone or make a grand arm gesture and mutter to yourself to ensure that no one in the surrounding area thinks you're crazy by randomly switching directions on the sidewalk.
  
  
• I totally take back all those times I didn't want to nap when I was younger.
  
  
• The letters T and G are very close to each other on a keyboard. This recently became all too apparent to me and consequently I will never be ending a work email with the phrase "Regards" again.
  
  
• Do you remember when you were a kid, playing Nintendo and it wouldn't work? You take the cartridge out, blow in it and that would magically fix the problem. Every kid in America did that, but how did we all know how to fix the problem? There was no internet or message boards or FAQ's. We just figured it out. Today's kids are soft.
  
  
• There is a great need for sarcasm font.
  
  
• Sometimes, I'll watch a movie that I watched when I was younger and suddenly realize I had no idea what the f*** was going on when I first saw it.
  
  
• I think everyone has a movie that they love so much; it actually becomes stressful to watch it with other people. I'll end up wasting 90 minutes shiftily glancing around to confirm that everyone's laughing at the right parts, then making sure I laugh just a little bit harder (and a millisecond earlier) to prove that I'm still the only one who really, really gets it.
  
  
• How the hell are you supposed to fold a fitted sheet?
  
  
• I would rather try to carry 10 plastic grocery bags in each hand than take 2 trips to bring my groceries in.
  
  
• I think part of a best friend's job should be to immediately clear your computer history if you die.
  
  
• The only time I look forward to a red light is when I’m trying to finish a text.
  
  
• A recent study has shown that playing beer pong contributes to the spread of mono and the flu. Yeah, if you suck at it.
  
  
• Was learning cursive really necessary?
  
  
• Lol has gone from meaning, "laugh out loud" to "I have nothing else to say".
  
  
• I have a hard time deciphering the fine line between boredom and hunger.
  
  
• Answering the same letter three times or more in a row on a Scantron test is absolutely petrifying.
  
  
• My brother's Municipal League baseball team is named the Stepdads. Seeing as none of the guys on the team are actual stepdads, I inquired about the name. He explained, "Cuz we beat you, and you hate us." Classy, bro.
  
  
• Whenever someone says "I'm not book smart, but I'm street smart", all I hear is "I'm not real smart, but I'm imaginary smart".
  
  
• How many times is it appropriate to say "What?" before you just nod and smile because you still didn't hear what they said?
  
  
• I love the sense of camaraderie when an entire line of cars teams up to prevent a dick from cutting in at the front. Stay strong, brothers!
  
  
• While driving yesterday I saw a banana peel in the road and instinctively swerved to avoid it...thanks Mario Kart.
  
  
• MapQuest really needs to start their directions on #5. Pretty sure I know how to get out of my neighborhood.
  
  
• Obituaries would be a lot more interesting if they told you how the person died.
  
  
• I find it hard to believe there are actually people who get in the shower first and THEN turn on the water.
  
  
• Shirts get dirty. Underwear gets dirty. Pants? Pants never get dirty, and you can wear them forever.
  
  
• I can't remember the last time I wasn't at least kind of tired.
  
  
• Bad decisions make good stories
  
  
• Whenever I'm Facebook stalking someone and I find out that their profile is public I feel like a kid on Christmas morning who just got the Red Ryder BB gun that I always wanted. 546 pictures? Don't mind if I do!
  
  
• Is it just me or do high school girls get sluttier & sluttier every year?
  
  
• If Carmen San Diego and Waldo ever got together, their offspring would probably just be completely invisible.
  
  
• Why is it that during an ice-breaker, when the whole room has to go around and say their name and where they are from, I get so incredibly nervous? Like I know my name, I know where I'm from; this shouldn't be a problem....
  
  
• You never know when it will strike, but there comes a moment at work when you've made up your mind that you just aren’t doing anything productive for the rest of the day.
  
  
• Can we all just agree to ignore whatever comes after DVDs? I don't want to have to restart my collection.
  
  
• There's no worse feeling than that millisecond you're sure you are going to die after leaning your chair back a little too far.
  
  
• I'm always slightly terrified when I exit out of Word and it asks me if I want to save any changes to my ten page research paper that I swear I did not make any changes to.
  
  
• "Do not machine wash or tumble dry" means I will never wash this ever.
  
  
• I hate being the one with the remote in a room full of people watching TV. There's so much pressure. 'I love this show, but will they judge me if I keep it on? I bet everyone is wishing we weren’t watching this. It's only a matter of time before they all get up and leave the room. Will we still be friends after this?'
  
  
• While watching the Olympics, I find myself cheering equally for China and USA. No, I am not of Chinese descent, but I am fairly certain that when Chinese athletes don’t win, they are executed.
  
  
• I hate when I just miss a call by the last ring (Hello? Hello? Darnit!), but when I immediately call back, it rings nine times and goes to voicemail. What'd you do after I didn't answer? Drop the phone and run away?
  
  
• I hate leaving my house confident and looking good and then not seeing anyone of importance the entire day. What a waste.
  
  
• When I meet a new girl, I'm terrified of mentioning something she hasn't already told me but that I have learned from some light internet stalking.
  
  
• I like all of the music in my iTunes, except when it's on shuffle, then I like about one in every fifteen songs in my iTunes.
  
  
• Why is a school zone 20 mph? That seems like the optimal cruising speed for pedophiles...
  
  
• As a driver I hate pedestrians, and as a pedestrian I hate drivers, but no matter what the mode of transportation, I always hate cyclists.
  
  
• Sometimes I'll look down at my watch 3 consecutive times and still not know what time it is.
  
  
• It should probably be called Unplanned Parenthood.
  
  
• I keep some people's phone numbers in my phone just so I know not to answer when they call.
  
  
• I think that if, years down the road when I’m trying to have a kid, I find out that I’m sterile, most of my disappointment will stem from the fact that I was not aware of my condition in college.
  
  
• Even if I knew your social security number, I wouldn't know what do to with it.
  
  
• Even under ideal conditions people have trouble locating their car keys in a pocket, finding their cell phone, and Pinning the Tail on the Donkey - but I’d bet my a$$ everyone can find and push the Snooze button from 3 feet away, in about 1.7 seconds, eyes closed, first time every time...
  
  
• My 4-year old son asked me in the car the other day "Dad what would happen if you ran over a ninja?" How the hell do I respond to that?
  
  
• It really pisses me off when I want to read a story on CNN.com and the link takes me to a video instead of text.
  
  
• I wonder if cops ever get pissed off at the fact that everyone they drive behind obeys the speed limit.
  
  
• I think the freezer deserves a light as well.
  
  
• I disagree with Kay Jewelers. I would bet on any given Friday or Saturday night more kisses begin with Miller Lites than Kay.
  
  
• The other night I ordered takeout, and when I looked in the bag, saw they had included four sets of plastic silverware. In other words, someone at the restaurant packed my order, took a second to think about it, and then estimate d that there must be at least four people eating to require such a large amount of food. Too bad I was eating by myself. There’s nothing like being made to feel like a fat b@st@rd before dinner.

Made a few changes in my lifestyle that I want to document just for my own purposes. Sort of a mid-year set of resolutions, perhaps?

First, eat smaller meals more often. The intended effect is to allow my stomach to shrink to eliminate large single meals. This won't be so hard since even with a big meal, I never tend to eat fast and I do enjoy daily mini-lunches. Also, this should stimulate my metabolism a bit more. It might also promote better sleeping, etc.

Second, eat better at those larger meals. This is a bigger change, since I tend to eat out a lot. This just involves eating at home more often. While this won't reduce my caloric intake too much, directly, it will change the types of things I eat, in a healthy way. For instance, switching french fries to vegetables as a side. And when I do eat out (which I won't eliminate fully), eat better, like a baked potato instead of fried potatoes.

Third, be conscious of my caloric intake. Eat healthy, but low-calorie mini-meals during the day, and make little concessions when necessary. For instance, avoid things like mayo, extra cheese, and soda. (Not that I drink even one soda a month, even. I tend to be a milk, latte, or water drinker.) I'm not going to track and tally calories and starve myself when I make a mistake, but simply be casually conscious of my choices.

All of this is not actually terribly hard. In looking back on my last few years, my caloric intake every day is really not too much above what I need normally. And other than eating out a lot for really my only meal of the day, I really did not consume many sweets or bad stuff (like non-diet soda pop being a big issue for many people). Maybe my biggest weakness is a large stomach on the days I do have an extra meal mid-day and don't limit myself.

All of this will lead to actually working out more, much like I used to in college, only with a little bit more cardio up front.

I do have reasons and goals for all this, but mostly it's just to live a bit healthier and happier. Mostly it is a goal to just lose some weight and move other weight around (fat into muscle). Doing this is not terribly hard, really. Rather than adhere to fancy diets and plans, the real key is simply to eat better (less calories is really the only key) and do actual heart-rate-increasing exercise while not sacrificing nutrition.

This has been my general habit for years: water, vendor machine snack, latte for lunch, vendor machine snack, large meal out.

This will be my newer habit: water, mini-lunch (i.e. an apple), latte or smoothie for lunch, mini-lunch (i.e. peanut butter sandwich), smaller meal at home.

This should smooth out the rough edges of my habits and adjust what needs adjusting most. This will give me more calories through the day but less at night, which should help my metabolism, stomach size, and correct my nutritional intake.

It's funny how you have a different self-image at various points in your life. You can't appreciate the good spots, truly, without feeling the bad ones, I think. For me, I probably was an excellent size in college but never really appreciated it until, 8 years later, I'm larger than I was then.

Yesterday, I reached my 30th birthday. I guess this means I should be looking back at where I've come and ahead to where I'm going; I mean, 3 decades is a nice, even, round number to act as some important milestone, right?

Naa, that's just cliche, and birthdays to me are about as meaningful as the passage of another calendar year; an indication of time passing as opposed to some stepping stone on the path of life itself.

In the past few weeks, however, I have been thinking of some major changes. For my whole life I've lived pretty much out of a single room. Growing up I had my bedroom and small toy room. In college I had a dorm room and then university apartments which really mean a bedroom and a shared room. Later on, I continued that trend by basically living out of a bedroom for my first 5 years post-college.

For the past year, I've been living in my own apartment; 2 bedrooms, living room. This is a lot of space for me to expand into, especially after nearly 30 years of being pretty comforted by the confines of everything being close to me. And now I'm planning on how to expand into my second bedroom and living room, which means some temporary expenses for furniture and fixings. This past weekend I actually got pretty excited about it, as I finally had a plan.

To set the stage more, I spend a lot of time on my computers, particular my laptops. I have a gaming machine as my desktop system, but it is only used for gaming. I don't watch television, but I do watch a lot of movies and love having one running in the backround. Interestingly, I don't watch movies while gaming, since that is pretty distracting.

I don't have a desk and haven't had one for about 2 years now, mostly working on my computers on a couch, chair, or my bed. In fact, I've moved my television and main computer into my bedroom, making it the room I spend 95% or more of my time.

I've decided to reclaim the rest of my apartment. I'll start by getting a desk for my computers, which I will put in the second bedroom. This will be matched with a comfortable chair (I don't skimp!) since I'll still spend a lot of time in there. If I want to watch a movie, I have spare systems/laptops to play a DVD in them next to me.

In the living room, I'll be able to use wireless to stay on my laptops while also watching a movie or reading a book. I really have no need to game on my gaming machine in my living room, so I don't need it around.

Really, this is the best plan I've had in a long time as far as living conditions go. It sounds like a bit of a no-brainer, but really I've done nothing because I didn't know where I'd end up. I didn't want to buy things and spend money without the plan moving forward, and until now, I just wanted everything in one room and split myself up.

So, that's what turning 30 has brought me; a sense to expand my living conditions beyond living out of one room.

Driving to work from lunch today I saw a car with the bumper sticker, "Jesus is my friend." It immediately make me chuckle and think about how we deal with imaginary friends in children, or even as adults (adults who talk to themselves, I guess). One is tolerated, one is tolerated with a lean eye, and another is not tolerated. Makes one wonder what our standards really are.

I've needed to write about a couple of things here lately. What better time than during the early parts of spring with introspective rain showers popping up regularly. These two items are slightly related and involve not just my personal life but my professional one as well.

1. What you are going to do is nothing compared to what you are doing. Only when you actually do great things does anyone care what you are going to be doing. Do; execute; be.

2. Do the good things first. For pretty much my entire life, I have typically held off on doing the things I really want to do. As a kid and until recently, when eating dinner I would eat the things I like the least first, saving the tastier portions for later in the meal. I think this tendency has pervaded more of my life than just my eating habits. As such, I am now taking action and giving effort to make sure I do the things I really want to do first, and if I have time (or appetite) left, then do the rest. Rather than save that awesome but lengthy technical paper on the latest, greatest computer attack for a more convenient time or until after I read some smaller, less interesting papers, I need to just read that paper and do it.

("Do, or do not..". is a Yoda quote from Star Wars.)

Wow, of all the things we could and should be upset about in our affluent culture, I cannot even believe people are outspoken and serious critics of the Pizza Hut BookIt program. This program is one of the formative programs of my childhood and some of the best memories of accomplishment in school, especially in my 3rd and 4th grade years revolve around what this program started.

Do I remember the pizzas? Barely. They were the kid versions, not like huge pizzas that I could engorge myself on. They were personal kid pizzas. But pizza aside, that was just a side benefit and nothing more. Maybe these days the program is different, but back then you could only get one pizza a week and the program only lasted about 2 months or something to that effect.

I don't even remember the first books I read, but I can tell you I didn't read books for pleasure before this program. Due to this program, I ended up accomplishing some things and feeling great about them, while also discovering reading. I think I soaked up over 100 Hardy Boys books over the course of the next 2-3 years!

I just can't believe how anal and pitiful our culture can become in denouncing such things. Maybe they have kids they think are slightly overweight and are looking for something to blame. I wonder what sort of vision of reality these people are trying to accomplish and if that is even attainable. There are so many other worthy things to criticize and be ensconced about versus going after a very successful and amazingly formative program that has sparked mine, and many others into reading and learning.

One last note, while these people are using rising rates of child obesity to support their claims, I wonder if there is a correlation between a decades old program and a years old problem. Gee, I really freakin' doubt it.

This is the best laugh I've had in weeks: CNNs 101 dumbest moments in business in 2006. The Chevy Tahoe viral act gaffe sets the stage, especially once I went to www.youtube.com and looked up some of those Chevy Tahoe ads. It just gets better as well! I didn't realize so many funny and awesome things happened in 2006!

One thing I've realized slowly over the years is there are a lot of people in this world and country with the name Michael Dickey. I've made attempts in the past to search out old buddies and friends and classmates from various times in my past, and typically, those searches yield very few hits when using their first and last names, even shortened versions of them. But a search on Michael Dickey or Mike Dickey yields more hits than I even care to go through. And maybe one or two end up referring to me! There's a number of artists, a few professors (one a woman), even some weird hits on some Linux forums.

That's kinda mindboggling and surprising. Although, about 5 years ago, someone was arrested here in Des Moines for holding up a grocery store with a gun whose name was Michael Dickey. There's another of me right here in town! Maybe I should consider using Michael L. Dickey in the future!

As much as that is a bit annoying, especially to anyone who might try to look me up like I do old buddies, that little bit of added noise is very helpful when trying to maintain some sort of anonymity online. It also helps that this site links out to very few other sites, and likewise gets linked to from very few sites. This keeps it relatively low on search engine results.

In other major news, all my tech stuff from this page has been moved over to my new site called terminal23.net. This is where all my tech, geek, security, IT, and other specialized stuff will go. Now I can stop dilluting my personal news and thoughts with all the technical stuff that makes sense only to other techies.