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Charging, Indy, Nieces, & the Project

Charging

Last weekend I took my first real road trip in the Tesla. I am defining a real road trip as one where you have to stop and charge at least one time. It was really nice. We have all seen those YouTube videos of people with non-tesla-ev’s and all the problems they have charging, so I was naturally a bit worried. But I didn’t need to be. I spent a lot of time leading up to the trip planning out where the best chargers were and where I should stop before coming home. My only stop on the way to Indy was in Terre Haute, IN (5600 New Margaret Drive, Terre Haute, IN 47803). There is a nice 250kwh charger there. I pulled in, plugged the car in, and walked over to the Culvers that was next door. Between the walking, the bathrooming, and then cleaning my windshield my car was mostly charged when I was done. I ended up watching a 10-minute YouTube video and then it was fully charged.

This guy pulled into the supercharger just to get a pic of his truck.

On the way back, there was a charger about 5 minutes from the hotel. I stopped there. I didn’t go into the grocery store it was by. The charger there was a slower charger. I cleaned the windshield and the headlights again. Then I was about to enter where I assumed my next charging stop would be, but instead, I just told it to route me home. It automatically chose the same charger in Terre Haute. It said I had enough charge, to get there, but I chose to let it charge up to 80% before I left. So I watched some cartoons on Netflix for maybe 20 minutes before heading out.

The only issue I had coming back was all that driving in 2 days led to my but being numb and my back hurting. I keep telling myself I need to get back into keto and I need to get back on the treadmill and lose some poundage so that these random pains go away. Considering it’s a week later and my back/left shoulder still hurts, it might be a good incentive.

Indy

Indy was great. I stayed at the Staybridge Inn & Suites in Carmel, IN. I had never stayed in this particular hotel chain before. It’s lumped in with all the Holiday Inn hotels, so I get points or something from it. It had a kitchenette in the room.

My hotel room.

It was really nice to be able to pull the leftover pizza out of my cooler and eat it on a real plate and have a nice relaxed dinner instead of having to eat it cold or on a paper towel. The room also had a nice couch, it was kind of hard, but still, a couch is always a nice addition. The bed was also ridiculously firm, much more firm than what I prefer. Nonetheless, I slept like a rock.

The reason I was in Indy was that my Aunt and Uncle were celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary. It was at a fairly nice vineyard that is near where they used to live. Despite driving over 4 hours to get there, I was the first guest to arrive. It was nice to see them, I hadn’t seen them in two years. A couple of my cousins were there and my brother and his family were there too.

Nieces

Last winter, my brother had invited me to come this summer on a neat trip. We were going to be starting in Grand Haven, MI, and then traveling up the West Coast of Michigan. It was only going to be a couple of days, but I had been planning on continuing up to Traverse City and spending a few days there too. Unfortunately, one of my cousins lost her job and the whole trip just fell through.

It was sad because I thought it would be a good opportunity to spend some time with my 3 nieces whom I hadn’t seen since pre-pandemic. The youngest of which, I hadn’t seen since she was baptized. I was worried that when they got to the anniversary party last weekend they wouldn’t recognize me and worse they would just ignore or be afraid of me.

The youngest was shy for maybe 20 minutes and then after that, she seemed to not be bothered by me at all. I think that might have a lot to do with her two older sisters being immediately comfortable around me. We hung out all day, colored pictures, played games, had some cookies, and had an all-around good time.

The Project

After the anniversary party, I followed my brother over to the hotel they were staying at. Once we were up in their room, I brought out the project I had been working on for the last 6 weeks or so, 3 little leather bags I put together for my nieces.

3 bags I made for the girls. Water bottle for scale.

The original plan was to make all 3 of them identical. After I did the first one, the one with the fur flap, I decided I just didn’t have the time to do all three of them with the hair on. It added a bunch of extra steps that were very time-consuming. First I had to cut out the fur piece, but it’s too flimsy, so I had to cut out another piece and glue it to that. The glue took at least a day and sometimes longer around the edge. That first bag took two weeks to do and if you zoom in, the hair around the rivets doesn’t look as nice.

The other two, I did in the Italian Badalassi Carlo I used on the bottom of all three of the bags. That leather is really nice, I hope to use that again on some future projects. I need to get a strap cutter. I ended up just buying a 1″ piece of veg tan harness strap. It’s by comparison much stiffer and much heavier than the rest of the bags. I left them natural, but I did hit them with some mink oil. I told my brother that the straps should darken and soften over time, which they probably will.

The girls really liked the bags, they were super excited when they got them and checked them out for a good two minutes until they figured out that inside the bags there were candy and toys. That is when all chaos broke out. For this past week, I think I earned best uncle. My brother was also really impressed with the craftsmanship of the bags. He asked me lots of questions about it.

The next project…

When I showed my sister the little bags, she told me a few days later that she was feeling kind of jealous of my nieces because they were getting something and she wasn’t. I had her pick something out, and I guess that will be the next project. I printed it out. It’s 22 pages long. That’s gonna be a lot of cutting.

The last year…

A lot has happened in the last year. Last time I was here, I told you all about Charlie and his medical drama. That’s probably a good of a place as any to start. After I brought Charlie home, he wouldn’t eat on his own. He couldn’t stand up, he couldn’t walk. It was rough. I put his crate up on my desk at home right by my monitors. When I was home I would come and sit at the computer and talk to him while I did whatever I was doing on the computer. I fed him through a tube for months. Slowly, very very slowly Charlie got better. One day I put some new food in his bowl, and held it up to his face and he ate it. I was so happy. He kept going. He ate 2 bowls of food and a half a chicken breast! He kept that up for a month and they took out his tube. It was a blessing, but also it made it much harder to give him his medicine. Now I had to do it orally instead of just with the tube.

Every day I would give him his medicine and he would eat his kibbles. I would take him out of his crate and put him in the playpen in the living room. Eventually, he started standing up and later to walk again. I let him roam the house while I was home and would crate him during the day and at night. In time he got well enough that he was walking around and I could let him roam all day while I was at work. The time he spent in the crate made him want to go to his crate at bedtime. It was kind of a bonus. Once a month, I would take Charlie to the vet and they would give him this drug called Cytosar. It’s some kind of anti-inflammatory drug. It really seemed to help him. On March 22, 2019, I woke up in the morning, was getting ready for work, and Charlie was making that “there’s something wrong” sound. We went to the vet. Charlie had another seizure. In addition to the seizure, there was a blood clot in his leg. They said that he would lose his leg. It was too long that it had lost circulation. But there was something else weird, and they didn’t know at the time what was going on. They needed to wait until the Neurology department was there. So he was resting, so I went to work.

I was worried of course, but I was at work just trying to do all that I could to keep my mind off my little buddy. I was walking into a meeting when the phone rang. They did some tests. That medicine that they had been giving him, it hadn’t been working. Whatever it was that had infected his brain, to begin with, had spread. It spread to his entire brain. They said that they could try and give him a stronger medication, but with his heart condition, there was no way he would survive. I had to say goodbye.

I went to the vet and they had Charlie in “the room” It’s a nice room. It’s quiet, it’s got a nice view. Charlie sat in the window and I stood there so he wouldn’t fall down. We looked at the cars as they went by. He always loved looking at the cars. Even though he was sedated, he meowed at the different cars as they went by. We did that for a while until he seemed like he was getting tired. Then we went and sat on the couch in the room. I remember once when Charlie was little and I didn’t feel well. He climbed up to lay on my chest. He would sit there. It was his way of comforting me. On that day, sitting in that room, he climbed up in that same spot. He knew something was wrong and that I was in such pain. It was his way. That’s where he died. He died trying to comfort me. He was my best friend in the whole world, and he died right there in my arms.

It’s been 3 months. I don’t cry every day. But sometimes when I have a bad day, I miss him being here so much. I’m sure writing this out will somehow help, but my sinuses are now clogged and I am out of kleenex again.

As far as my low carb keto diet goes, I’ve lost a lot of weight. Not just because of what’s above. To date, I’ve lost 137 pounds, though I haven’t really lost anything in the last few weeks. My ketones seem to be low, so I need to adjust my macros again and double down on eating cleanly. I’d like to lose another 50 pounds over the next year. Not sure how feasible that is, but that’s my goal.

I have been walking on the treadmill a lot. I did that even before I started doing keto. I usually get into the 2.8 mile per hour range while I’m walking. So I set a goal for myself last year to get up to 3mph. Not a big difference. Right around the same time, I learned that 5K is actually 3.01 miles. So in May, I was able to scratch that off my list. I walked in the 5k for the opening of the Fairview Heights Rec Center. I still don’t like the name “The Rec”. It kind of reminds me of college, but even then we called that the rec center, not the rec. It’s just a weird name to me I guess. Upside, it’s like almost across the street, so I can go over there anytime. Wish there was a discount for that.

I decided I wanted to try hiking. It’s something that I’ve been interested in for a long time, but have just been too out of shape to do anything about. A couple of weeks ago, I met a friend at Queeny Park and we walked 4.1 miles around the Hawk Ridge Trail. It was a good hike. Yesterday, I went over to Cahokia Mounds and walked 3.6 miles. Their trail isn’t named. I saw 15 deer while I was there. Deer make this sound, I think it’s like a snort, but it kind of sounds like a kazoo. Part of the trail walks you through some prairie grass. I would be walking down the trail and bedded down deer would kazoo and just jump out of their spot and bound away. They would be very close when this happened. It scared the crap out of me every time. I had some sugar-free Altoids in a tin in my pocket. After the 3rd or 4th kazoo, I took to shaking the tin as I walked through the prairie grass. My hope was just that they would hear that first and would run away before they had to kazoo. At one point, and the only point I was really worried, I was walking around the side of a hill. The hill was too my right at about 2 o’clock. The woods were to my left. Somewhere in the prairie grass up on the hill, I can see poking up above the grass are these deer antlers. I stopped and counted, 6 on each side. Last thing I need the day before a step challenge is to get gored by a deer. Even though the trail was hugging the woods, I was relieved that the deer was up there, and I was down here. Until the path changed direction. I kept shaking that mint tin. The trail wound up the side of the hill and turned the corner. There standing in the trail about 30 yards ahead was the smallest deer I’ve ever seen. Less than a foot tall. Honestly, I didn’t know they came that small. Must have been just born. Standing two feed to the right was momma. She was staring right at me. Standing maybe 10-15 feet to the right was dad and his antlers. I stopped walking. I stood there and looked away. I talked to no one in particular and I shook the mint tin. I wondered if you could rent a dog for a hike. I could have used one. Those deer watched me for what felt like an eternity. I was starting to wonder if I should turn around and go back. Then they kazooed (yup, it’s a verb now, just deal) away. By the time I got around the big mound, I was seriously hitting a wall. I had been sipping my water the whole time, but I am just not ready for the 100-degree heat index and 80% humidity. So I skipped the summit and just walked back to the car. Overall, it was a good hike. Next time, I’ll hit the summit. In fact, next time, I might walk the opposite direction. Hit the summit early and then get to walk in the shade on the way back, that might be nicer.

At work, I’ve been running this step challenge. It just started today, but we are already off to a good start. Everyone I’ve talked to has been really excited. It’s 66 days to walk in teams of 6 the distance of the famous route 66. That’s from Chicago, IL to Santa Monica, CA. I can actually say I’ve been to both cities. We have some events planned on Saturdays. We have one hike scheduled every Saturday morning. I’m actually looking forward to it.

My nose has de-snotted, so I guess that means it’s bedtime. Night All.

Breaking out of ruts

In my very first job out of college, for lunch every day for at least six months I ate ramen noodles. Not the nice big souper bowl ones, but the ones that come in the little styrofoam cup. Every day at lunchtime, I would walk into the break room and get a plastic spoon and fill up my electric kettle with water. At my desk, I would turn on the kettle and walk away. A few minutes later I would come back, open up the ramen noodle cup, add water up to the fill line, and lay the plastic spoon over the top of the paper lid to hold it in place. Two minutes later, super el cheapo lunch. Like I said this went on for months. One day, I picked up my freshly prepared lunch opened the lid and stuck the spoon in and sitting there looking at the noodles, I suddenly felt so sick. I threw the noodles away, and said, “I can’t eat this crap.” My coworker said something sarcastic, and I’m sure it was funny but I don’t remember what it was. Then I went out and picked up something else for lunch. I don’t think eating ramen every day for months on end made me insane, but on that last day, maybe if I had eaten it one more day it would have. I don’t know. That day was the end of a food rut. I wish it were my last.

Fast forward a few years, same company, different position, and I had gone through a number of different lunch ruts. There was the pizza roll/bagel bites rut, which admittedly I do still fall back into from time to time. There was the peanut butter and jelly rut. To this day I cannot eat grape jelly. There was the grilled chicken and broccoli rut. This one was probably the worst. I was trying to lose weight and be more paleo. I don’t even remember what paleo means. It totally backfired though cause the boredom of eating this every day would cause me to sneak candy or something else totally unhealthy in the afternoon.

It’s not just at work either. I struggle at home too. I can make a few things: buffalo chicken, though I call it orange chicken, spaghetti, pizza, eggs in several ways (fried with cheese, over easy, scrambled, hard-boiled), tacos, hot dogs, etc. I make a good taco soup and an occasional turkey stew. On the weekends for breakfast, I’ll either make an omelet, french toast, or pancakes.

I find myself in an all meal food rut. I am bored of the every morning smoothie. I am tired of the whatever I had the night before leftovers for lunch the next day thing. And I am super tired of the whatever I made for dinner thing. I am probably the worst person when it comes to leftovers. I almost never eat leftovers. I look at them, ultimately decide I don’t want that and throw it into the back of the fridge. The next time I see it, I am tossing it in its Tupperware straight into the trash cause it’s growing something new and I don’t even want to deal with it.

A couple of weeks ago, I was listening to one of my weekly podcasts and they had a $30 off coupon for something I have looked at before but had dismissed because it’s too expensive. But stuck in this mega food rut, I decided to give it a go. I’ll have to make the cost difference up somewhere else. So, I signed up for #BlueApron.

I signed up for the 2 meals a week plan. It’s supposed to be 2 servings in each meal. So, in theory, I could eat one serving for dinner and the other for lunch, but I am very unlikely to do this and really so far, the portion sizes to me don’t seem to really be big enough for two people. I’ve posted on facebook the pictures of the stuff I have made so far, and I have gotten a lot of questions. So I have made the decision to dust off this old blog and make individual posts for each meal. Maybe this will help me get out of the other rut I’ve been stuck in, which is coming home, making and eating dinner, and then watching Netflix or youtube until its bedtime. I don’t know how it will go, but we’ll see.

Incidentally, its now after 9 pm and I still haven’t made or picked up dinner. Why? Because nothing sounds good. Stupid rut.