July 12, 2006

Vacation still in full-swing. For the last couple of days, I’ve been trying to do more than eat, sleep, and watch TV. For the last couple of weeks, I’ve been hooked on instant messaging; I would spend a couple of hours on IM, then I would be too tired to do anything else. I would spend a couple of hours in the morning, then I would spent another couple of hours in the evening. For the last couple of days, I’ve been limiting my time on IM to only once a day.

Diet. Not much on that front. I have not been managing my eating habits as much as I would like. My plan of substituting a half a gallon of sherbet (which I have been eating almost nightly) with a box of 4 fruit bars failed. I ate the whole box in about 20 minutes. Yesterday, I went back to buying sherbet; it is cheaper, and it is a little bit healthier. I will just have to try not eating more than half in an evening.

In a previous blog entry, I mentioned buying a rice cooker. It turned out to be a waste of money. Once I got it home and opened the box, I realized that it would be too much of a pain (and a hassle) to make rice in that cooker. I thought I would only need to dump rice in the machine then return when it was finished. Nope, I would have to watch the machine while the rice is cooking, I would have to expect some “browning” on the bottom of the inside container. I would have to stir and remove the rice as soon as the rice was cooked. I would have to allow soaking time, and cleaning time. For me, it would be easier to just cook the rice the way I’ve been cooking the rice…in a simple pot. I learned my lesson, from now on; I will choose my gadgets carefully.

Oh by the way, I ordered a hot air popcorn maker on the internet; it arrived yesterday. I bought the hot air popcorn maker because it is more healthier than the store-bought chips (and popcorn) I’ve been buying. I also thought that making the popcorn would be fun. So far, I like my popcorn maker. It is actually faster than the microwave popcorn which takes about 7 to 8 minutes. The hot air popcorn maker only took 3 minutes to make popcorn.

Exercising. Well, I’ve started rowing again. I also bought a vinyl (plastic) workout suit. It’s great! After rowing on my machine for about 30 minutes, I am soaking in sweat. I think the sweating is helping to keep my pores open. Before the suit, I would spend about 30 minutes on the rowing machine, but it would not feel like I did anything. Now, with the suit on, I feel like I had a very intensive workout. The only down side is the 15 to 20 minutes it takes for me to clean up the sweat. Since I am living in a shoebox (with a carpeted floor), where the bathroom is not readily available, I have to lay down a plastic trashbag to act as a tarp. I have to wring out my clothes (about 8 to 10 ounces of sweat), then I have to hang up my clothes. Finally, I have to wipe down the vinyl suit and hang it to dry. The clean up is almost as intensive as the exercising. Once I have my own apartment, the clean up will be much easier. I’ll just have to go the to bathroom, strip, dump everything into tub, hang, shower and boom…finished.

Today I went walking around my neighborhood. It has been a very long time since I’ve been walking around. I was planning to go to the New York Botanical Garden which is about a 10 minute walk from where I am now living. By the time I arrived at the Garden gate it was about 4 in the afternoon, I did not want to rush through the garden, so I decided to postpone my walk there. Instead, I walked to the Bronx Zoo gate (I just wanted to see how long it would take to walk there). The Bronx Zoo is also located in my neighborhood. In total, I walked about 2 hours.

Post Date - July 15, 2006 11:43am