Let's get Motivated

Yo.

Life is pretty damn good. There are a few things I could bitch and moan about but no one wants to hear about that crap. I'm going to try to get the blog rolling again, this time using it as a motivational tool to improve my life. I think I'm going to use a simple list format with the categories: Good, Bad and To Do. Kind of like this:

Good:
-Drove ~530 miles from Tucson to Los Angeles. 1/3 of the way home.
-Bought dinner for Swass because he's letting me crash on his futon.
-Told my girlfriend I love her.

Bad:
-Overate at dinner. Toooo much sushi.
-Didn't get any exercise.
-Didn't read at all.

To Do:
-Driving to San Fran tomorrow. Should make an effort to walk a few miles around the city. Maybe some push-ups in the AM.
-Eat at least one healthy meal. Maybe some fruit for breakfast and In N Out for lunch.
-Call my girlfriend and mother.
-Spend some quality time with my San Fran friends, Robert and Nichole.

At a minimum, I'll try to get something like that up every day. At a maximum, I'll ramble for a few paragraphs about non sequitur junk. We'll see how it goes.

I just spent an excellent weekend in Tucson. My girlfriend, who moved to Seattle in June, is from Tucson and this was her first trip back. These homecoming trips always end up being too busy...so many people to see, so little time. In addition to catching up with old acquaintances, we packed a U-Haul with her bed, dresser, clothes, shoes, nightstand, etc and I'm currently driving it to Seattle. Jazmin was with me today for the drive to LA but she has to work tomorrow so she flew home tonight. I don't mind driving, road trips are my favorite thing in the world, but I'm going to be a bit lonely as I cruise North on the boring I-5 route. I think I've driven that route ~15 or 20 times. I do enjoy Mount Shasta and Silva's Restaurant in Weed, CA but the rest of the 1000 miles are pretty painful. Anyway, I'm hoping to hang out in San Fran tomorrow night, not drink too much, get up early, and get home late on Tuesday night. We'll see how that goes.

I recently got a Kindle and it's rekindled(HAR HAR) my love of reading. As a child, I was constantly reading. Charlie and the Chocolate factory and any book by Roald Dahl were my favorites. At some point in High School, I basically stopped reading unless I had something assigned. Over the last few years I've read ~1 book per year. Pitiful. With the Kindle, I read 1.5 books just this weekend. The book that I started at the Seattle airport and finished in Jazmin's mom's living room is called Flawless: Inside the Largest Diamond Heist in History. The book was pretty interesting, although the writing style is a little dry. The authors are being extra careful to give you all the facts and the book comes off kind of like a scientific textbook. I think this is because much of the information contradicts the Ringleader's account that he gave Wired Magazine from prison. You can find that here. Anyway, the book is a good read if you want to learn about diamonds, Antwerp, or Italian criminals. I certainly don't regret reading it. The book that I'm halfway through is Darkly Dreaming Dexter, the book that the 1st season of Dexter is based on. It's pretty good and the author does a good job of painting images with his writing. The storyline is pretty consistent with the show but it's still fun to read even though I know what's going to happen. So far, so good.


Last week, my brother was in town and he introduced me to Five Fingers by Vibram. These shoes make you walk as if you were barefoot and that has all kinds of health benefits. My brother owns 6 pairs and tries not to wear anything else. Since I trust his judgement, I immediately bought 3 pairs and haven't worn anything else over the past week. They're a great conversation starter and I've found them to be really comfortable. My feet do hurt but I think it's a good hurt...strengthening my arches and whatnot. I'll let you know if I develop stress fractures and cripple myself for life but for now, I'm enjoying these things. The next step is to buy a pair for running and start jogging. Baby steps for now.

There you have it...my foray back into the world of blogging. I'll leave you with a pic from this weekend's UW-Arizona tailgate. The pic was probably going to be a good one but for some reason the camera on my phone was set to "Solarize". Strange. We won't talk about the game itself but tailgating was pretty fun. Hope to see you again tomorrow.