Reflections on Fifty

Although it is March 14^th, my birthday, I was born at 10:32 in the morning and consequently have a few hours before I actually turn 50.  With a few hours remaining as a person in my forties, I began to take stock of the last 49 years, and reflect on the next few years.

Have I met my goals in life?  Have I been a good person?  Have I been a success?  If I’m honest, the answer to the latter is really an aggregate of the answer to the first two questions; and I have to acknowledge that I’m not qualified to answer those questions.  History, and those of you who know me are best qualified to answer them.

So if the past is left for others to judge, what remains is for me to set course for however remaining years I have.  It’s odd that fifty has traditionally been a boundary line between youth and middle age; fact is centenarians are still the exception.  With average life expectancy for U.S. men set at 75.4 (WebMD figures) middle age for me started at about 38.

I don’t want this post to be about stats and mortality, but rather how to squeeze the most life out of the 25.4 years (on average) I have left.  At the risk of making this seem like a bucket list, here are some of the things I want to do or see before I become a footnote:

• ·         See my two kids live happy independent lives.  You may laugh, but this one isn’t as certain as I would like.

…. You know what….. after that one, the rest is icing on the cake.  But, it wouldn’t be bad if some of the icing included:

       

Cheese!

  
• Eating a croissant and coffee with Kathie at a Parisian sidewalk café
• Visit Pisa Italy and have Kathie take a cheesy photo of me holding up the tower with one hand.
• Eat Sushi with Kathie at a Tokyo Sushi restaurant.
• Take Kathie on a gondola ride in Venice, though my guess is she’d prefer to visit Rome.
• Travel through the 49 continental states on my bike.  I’m not shipping “Bob” to Hawaii.
• Go to Africa and have Kathie take a picture of me throwing a Hula Hoop around a giraffe’s neck.
• Publish a book about my two wheeled travels.
• See and photograph the aurora borealis.
• Visit all of the Major League Ballparks, and watch a game at Camden Yards. Go Orioles!
• Complete the following Iron Butt Association rides on my bike.
• The Saddle Sore 1000 (entry ride for IBA membership) 1000 miles ridden in 24 hours
• The 50CC ride – Coast-to-Coast  San Diego, CA to Jacksonville, FL in 50 hours
• The Four Corners tour:   San Ysidro, CA, to Blaine, WA, to Madwaska, ME, to Key West, FL in 21 days.
• Speaking of Key West, I want to buy His and Hers Margaritas at Jimmy Buffet’s restaurant in Key West.

My list is subject to amendment, but this is a good start.  It’s a lot to do, but I have twenty-five years.  I best get started.  What’s on your list?

Check The Grommet

I have my first colonoscopy scheduled for tomorrow,  March 13^th.  Of course that means today I can’t eat any solid food, so I thought I would try to keep my mind off of munchies by writing a few words about my upcoming experience.

 

Per my paperwork, along with no solid foods today, I get to treat myself to a butt-blast cocktail this afternoon.  As compelling as today will be, it pales in comparison to tomorrow’s activities.  I get to slip on an alluring one-size-fits-none gown, and then I get slipped a Roofie, then they try to slip this thing up my southern regions!

They're very thorough at Kaiser!

Bad news is I will only be “twilight-sedated” (which means I’ll be forced to watch Bella, and Edward until I lose the will to live and lapse into unconsciousness.)  But the good news is, since I won’t be under a general anesthetic, I’ll be able to carry on a conversation with the doctor, and ask him relevant questions like:

• ·        Have you found Amelia Earhart yet?
• ·         Is this how a Muppet feels?
• ·         Doc, let me know if you find my dignity.

The Star Trek fan in me may ask if he realizes that he is “Boldly going where no man has gone before!” and the smart aleck in me may ask: “Are we there yet?  Are we there yet?  Are we there yet? “

All kidding aside, a colonoscopy is an effective way for your healthcare professional to check for possible colon problems, most commonly colorectal cancer and polyps in the colon. A colonoscopy may also be used to evaluate and treat less serious conditions, such as abdominal pain, bleeding in the stools, and changes in bowel habits.  I’m having this procedure done because of some non-standard results on some recent lab work.

Nearly 150,000 people are expected to be diagnosed with colon cancer this year alone, but thankfully, colorectal cancer is over 90% curable when caught in its earliest stages. That's why colonoscopy screenings are so important for people over the age of 50. The American Cancer Society recommends that in order to prevent colorectal cancer, men and women over the age of 50 should receive a colonoscopy every 10 years.  –American Cancer Soceity

Right about now one would expect a picture of an awareness ribbon, but personally I think those are a bunch of hooey!  But if you ask me the ribbon should be brown.  For those of you that need a ribbon to be aware of some important issue, here you go:

I’ve just realized the most important thing I can ask for from my doctor: A note to my wife that in fact my head was not in there.

Did I mention my doctor’s name?  Doctor Rapier.

Wish me luck.

Now they've done it!!!

To steal a quote from Butters in South Park, "Now I'm Mad!!!"

What has my undies all bundled up into square knots this time?  Well let's take a trip in my "way back machine" to a simpler time - this morning - when I was making my coffee.  I was listening to a radio station, it might have been KFI but which station doesn't really matter, and taking a sip of my coffee when I heard a sound so offensive to my ears that I nearly lost my Pikes Place via a side trip through my sinuses.  Imagine a thousands sets of finger nails being dragged across a chalkboard, imagine a hundred cats engaged in a blood lust mating ritual.  They pale in comparison to the Kohl's commercial that was simply a mash up of the worst music video of all time.

Out of my radio came the excessively auto-tuned, yet not quite as nasal sound of studio singers singing:


"Black Friday, Black Friday, gotta shop on Black Friday....."


I can't remember the rest of the lyrics, or the tag line for the jingle, I can only recall that the store responsible for this atrocity was Kohl's

Now I know there are a lot of fans of Kohl's out there, and I have no real problem with Kohls.  But look at their logo.  (over there, to the left)

Doesn't it say right under their name "expect great things"????

Well?  Shouldn't we expect great things?  Now personally I just see Kohls as Target with an attitude, and I'll grant you that's from a guy who only shops Amazon.  But if you're going to say "expect great things," shouldn't we?  I mean really.... Rebecca Black?  For those of you who haven't seen it.....  My apologies...

I know I'm just being overly sensitive here.  I know that my vitriol directed at Kohl's has more to do with the assault by retailers on the natural order.  The natural order that dictates that each holiday wait its turn.

My favorite holiday has always been Thanksgiving.  I remember a time when you better have made sure that you have all of your ingredients for Thanksgiving dinner purchased by Wednesday afternoon because you weren't going to find a store open on Thursday.  If you forgot the canned cranberry sauce you better hope one of your neighbors has extra, and you know what, they usually did, and they shared.  It made for better neighborhoods.  (Heck I don't even know the names of any of my neighbors more than two doors away.)

Now, even before our Thanksgiving dinner is digested, retailers want us to leave our warm homes and camp out in front of their stores so we can go spend money we don't have, on gifts we really don't need, while pushing and shoving with others who have also lost the true meaning of this holiday season.

I for one have had it.  Kohl's..... You won't see a dime of my money, if for no other reason than you reminding me of the dangers of over indulgent parents.  (Yeah Mr. & Mrs Black, I'm looking at you.)

And retailers....... You won't see a single dollar from me until December.  And good reader.... if you've made it this far.... it's time to push back.  There's absolutely no reason why they need our money (or our promise to pay the 29.9% apr credit card bill) before 5:00am Friday morning.  If we don't hold firm we run the risk of marginalizing my favorite holiday of the year.  If we don't push back, Thanksgiving will become a Subway turkey sandwich in a tent in front of Best Buy.

I don't have a "way back machine".......  I wish I did.  But if I did, it would look like this:

HAPPY THANKSGIVING EVERYONE!!!!!!

Road Trip 2012

OK folks, it's time to talk about Road Trip 2012…….

On March 14th, 2012, yours truly turns 50, and what better way to observe a milestone of this importance than to embark on a endeavor that to some may seem risky, and may strike others as hair-brained; but at the same time give that 50 year old an opportunity to show what he can still do, and prove to himself that Old Guys do in fact rule!

Road trip 2012 will be a 7000 mile cross country trip over the course of approximately 3 weeks on my Suzuki Burgman Scooter.

I will be wheels up on Sunday, June 17, 2012 (yes, Father's Day 2012) and I'll head east. My main waypoints will be:

• Mesa, AZ
• Willard, MO
• Buford, GA
• Cedar Point, NC
• Chicago, IL
• Sturgis, SD
• Yellowstone Nat'l Park
• Port Orchard, WA
• Crater Lake Nat'l Park, OR

…. and back home!

Over the next 12 months I have quite a bit of prep to do, related to both my ride, and my myself.

First things first, I'll be converting this blog (at least temporarily) to a pseudo "Mission Control" for my trip so please excuse the dust while I do some re-design work. After that I hope to share with any of you interested enough to come back and read, the process and preparations i'm going through to make Road Trip 2012 a success.

Now that you know what I have planned for next year, please feel free to share your thoughts, offer any recommendations for places to visit, or any suggestions of places to avoid.

In the coming months I'll share more details about the route, the bike I'm using, why I chose the above main waypoints, etc etc etc.

The clock is now ticking we're at T-Minus 357 days, there's a lot to arrange before then, and I'm glad that you're along for the ride!

-FA

How To Save A Life

How To Save A Life

My apologies to The Fray for stealing their song title, but it seemed an appropriate title for this kind of post.

Those of you who have seen me in person in the last few years know that I'm carrying way too much weight. I had it dramatically pointed out to me by a very good friend that whenever I walk around, climb a flight of stairs, get into or out of my car, I am effectively doing it with three 5 gallon water bottles strapped to my back. Hence the new profile picture.

Let me do the math for you: 8 lbs per gallon x 5 gallons x 3 bottles......... Yep 120 lbs more than I should be carting around. It is actually pretty surreal to see those numbers on the screen. With those numbers have come all the side effects, low energy, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, pre-diabetes, never being able to buy clothes at CostCo, frightening children and small animals.

I wasn't always like this. I weighed 185 when I got married, I spent most of my early 20's in the 170-180 range thanks to an addiction to running on the mission beach boardwalk, an actively utilized membership to what was then called Family Fitness (now 24Hour Fitness,) and the typical young dude on the prowl lifestyle.

May 4th 1988 changed that. I was riding my motorcycle back home filled with the euphoria of Kathie saying yes to my proposal of marriage. My mind was a million miles away when the hit-and-run driver rear ended me on the I-5. But for a few strokes of good luck, you wouldn't be subjected to this story today.

I recovered, but my knees were never the same, and the running that I so enjoyed doing was now out of the picture. I'm not naive enough to try and pin the entire blame for my current state on my inability to run, but humor me and let me at least see it as a catalyst or turning point for the second stage of my life.

Twenties turn into Thirties, and Thirties turn into Forties.......... In the two decades-plus since that accident my weight has crept up. Much like the frog that slowly boils to death in the pot.... Less active lifestyle, affinity for culinary delights of all types, and years of being a road warrior and the drive-through junk food that came with it all playing their part. ...... And guess what those Forties are going to turn into in a little more than a year.

If you have read this far dear friend, thank you for hanging in there, and let me get to the bottom line. Everyone fears failure, or at least if you don't fear it you have a healthy aversion to it; yet often we're able to hide from our failures because (as in the case of weight loss) the battle is often one fought solo, with our day to day failures hidden from those around us. Yes, I know the fact that one is still as big as a blimp is a subtle clue, but for the most part only your very closest friends and family are aware of your efforts and if you fail, they're often too polite to point and laugh. So that, my friends, is why I'm taking my effort public and you can all help. (More details on that later)

Let me say at this point that I have done it all: Jenny Craig, Nutri-System, the Zone, South Beach, Atkins, carbs are bad, carbs are good, fat is to be avoided, fat is to be cherished and molded into little sculptures of penguins........ hmmm went a little too far with that one.

One thing is certain, and that is the immutable law of thermodynamics related to one simple bio-mechanical calculation: 3,500 calories equals 1 lb of lipid tissue (FAT.) Put simply, the best weight loss book in the world can be printed on a 3x5 card: "Eat Less, Exercise More." That's it, end of story. To lose 2lbs a week you have to make sure that your body burns 1000 calories per day more than it takes in.

The BodyBugg

This is where you come in. I have this nifty device called a BodyBugg, and while that actually sounds like something you would want to see the doctor about, it really is a cool little gadget that straps to your arm and takes measurements of 14 different biometric inputs and uses some of that computer magic to (with about 95% accuracy) measure how many calories you burned that day. Combined with a web interface that allows you to journal every calorie that goes down your gullet it provides daily feedback regarding your calorie burned to calorie consumed ratio. Throw in a weight tracking component and it's everything that a geeky weight loss candidate would want. And here's the best part (you just knew there would be a best part - right?) the BodyBugg software now has a direct reporting feature which pumps your updates right out to Facebook for you, automatically allowing your friends the opportunity to cheer or laugh, or shake their heads in disappointment as appropriate.

So, I'm going to ask those of you who are interested to help keep me honest. What's in it for you? The excitement of taking part in a social experiment called "Weight Loss by Public Humiliation," and the warm and comfy feeling that comes with knowing that you helped me break free of the shackles of three water bottles. (BTW those water bottles will be my avatar for this project and will slowly be PhotoShopped away as I work towards my goal, and Photoshopped back in as I slip up.) On the other side, you're agreeing that you don't mind the daily updates, and you commit to giving me some good natured grief if I forget to post the daily updates.

Now here's the most important part..... I need to make sure that this little experiment is really only amongst the willing, and I need to know that everyone involved has read this post and knows what's going on, so I need you to do the following: Go back to the Facebook post that had the link to this Blog and in the comment section type the following comment "ok i'm in" (all lower case helps me weed out the copy cats who didn't really read the post) LOL

Friday evening I will remove everyone from my friends list who has not posted that comment. I'm taking this extra, perhaps melodramatic, step to protect myself if only a little bit, by making sure that I'm baring my situation only to those who truly are interested in helping out.

(*** Quick Note: Since this post I have decided not to dump the non-participating Facebook friends, but rather to setup a Facebook Group for those who wish to participate.***)

For those of you who don’t want to be part of this, for whatever reason, I completely understand, no worries. For those of you who sign up for this social experiment, welcome aboard and thanks for the help.

See you on FB!

Frank

A Run-on Night

Ever have one of those nights where you toss and turn, and you can't fall asleep, then around 2:30am you finally start to drift off, and then your Golden Retriever decides it would be a grand time to go out in the rain to do her business, and you go outside with her to make sure she doesn't dig up your flower beds in the process of saying "Hi" to the neighbor dog, and in spite of the umbrella you get some big raindrops hitting your body leaving you wide awake, and also chilling your body enough that you decide to stay out of bed for a little bit to make sure you reach something approaching room temperature so that you don't give your loved one thermal shock under the covers, which gives you the opportunity to check out Amazon for last minute gift ideas, and you find an incredible deal on a Roku box with free one day shipping so you go ahead and get one because you know they are really cool and your family will be happy to have one, and since you're here anyway you go ahead and replenish your stock of Tassimo disks for the office because you're hopelessly addicted to coffee, and as you're checking your Amazon confirmation email you realize that a general clean-up of your email inbox is way overdue, and in your email is some spam offering to sell you an authentic "Rolleks" watch, which makes you look at the clock on the wall, and suddenly you realize that even though you are finally getting a little sleepy it's now 4:30am and you can't possibly go to sleep now and expect the alarm to wake you up in time for the very busy day you are expecting at work today, so you hop on to Blogger and tap out a post to elicit not sympathy, but rather some empathy with your situation, only to realize that, most likely, no one will read your post?

Yeah, I just had one of those nights too!

I better go make some coffee!

Why Al Qaeda Hates Us #37

A continuing informational series by the publishers of "To Be Perfectly Frank."

This entry in the "Why Al Qaeda Hates Us" series is particularly troublesome. Unlike #1, Paris Hilton, with whom you can simply turn off the TV; or #23, Oakland Raider Fans, to whom you can simply hand a non-screw top beer bottle and they're effectively out of commission for 20-30 minutes while they figure things out, with #37 an encounter usually presents itself suddenly and without mechanism for mitigation.

#37 is really a head scratcher, because along with being an assault on your sensibilities it leaves a person wondering "what were they thinking?" #37 attacks without warning, and can leave a parent very uncomfortable questions to answer.

An encounter with #37 usually unfolds like this:

The setting is a family sedan or mini-van on a under-engineered overcrowded 2-lane highway (imagine the 76 between I-15 and Olive Hill Road.)

For our narrative, the fictional family will be played by Angelina Jolie as "Mom," Brad Pitt as "Dad," Matt Azevedo as 17 year old boy, and Paula Azevedo as 5 year old girl.

Mom: "Oh No!'

Son: "What's up mom?"

Daughter: "Mommy?"

Dad: "Hush guys! I'm listening to Leo Laporte!"

Mom: "Close your eyes, kids!"

Son: "What's up ?!?!"

Mom: "Brad open your eyes!"

(Dad opens his eyes and gets back on his side of the road.)

Daughter: "Can we get Chicken Nuggets™?"

(Son now notices what's bothering mom.)

Son: "Bwahahaha that truck has Balls!"

Daughter: "DADDY, I'M SCARED!"

The rest is far to gruesome to share here. But yes, what we're talking about is entry #37 in why Al Qaeda hates us.

Truck Nutz

(I'll let that sink in a little bit)

Yes, Truck Nutz

Available in both natural flesh tones, and in brass (get it?) these fake (an appropriate euphemism escapes me at the moment - fill in your own) attach to the unused trailer hitch of your vehicle and endows the vehicle with (again insert your own euphemism.)

What thought process goes into the decision to place these things on your vehicle? The following picture underscores the notion that most likely none at all because of the driver's inability to drum up a sober thought.

In my research for this post I was amazed at the amount of crossover between people showing up in Truck Nutz pictures and showing up on the http://www.peopleofwalmart.com/ website.

When I was a kid this was the picture of America's Mom & Dad's

Unfortunately for far too many this is mom and dad now:

And that is another reason Al Qaeda hates us.

FA